


What I'm Viewing Is A Little Different

by mardia



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Female Friendship, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Not Canon Compliant, discussions of racism and homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 21:37:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8863051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mardia/pseuds/mardia
Summary: It's been four years since Ginny was called up to the Padres, and she's got a World Series ring, millions in her bank account, and a female protege waiting in the wings. And Mike Lawson, but that last part isn't news.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iamtheenemy (Steph)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steph/gifts).



> First, huge thanks to everyone who beta-read this fic, I literally couldn't have gotten this done without you. Title comes from the song Superpower by Beyonce and Frank Ocean. This fic was mostly written before 1x09 and 1x10, and doesn't take those last two episodes into account, so it's not entirely canon-compliant.
> 
> For the racism and homophobia tag, while this fic does deal with those topics in more depth than what we've seen on the show, I did still want to also keep to the show's optimistic, hopeful tone, and I hope that's how it comes across.
> 
> And finally, happy Yuletide, iamtheenemy! I was super excited when I saw your Yuletide letter, and I had a blast writing it.

It’s been three days since the news of Ginny’s breakup with Andre Jenkins broke in the media, and her teammates are _still_ looking at her as though someone died. 

Granted, Ginny’s face is currently plastered all over the covers of People, In Touch, and Us Weekly, photoshopped next to Andre’s with a big zigzag down the middle, over such headlines as Why They Broke Up! and Shocking Split: How Ginny Broke Andre’s Heart.

_“Why am I the man-eater in all this?” she’d asked Amelia, grumbling._

_“Because TMZ caught footage of your ex looking like his dog just died,” Amelia had said, but not without sympathy. “Look, we’ll release something from unnamed sources saying that you couldn’t deal with the distance, that you still have love for each other--”_

_“Which is true,” Ginny pointed out._

_“--yes, and it also sounds good,” Amelia said to her. “Isn’t it nice when that happens?”_

_Ginny had shaken her head, but she’d also chuckled, which was what Amelia was clearly going for to start with._

So the media coverage of her year-long relationship ending sucks, but she can deal. What’s really annoying is the hush when she gets onto the team bus for the drive up to the airport, the way everyone’s giving her side-glances as she walks past. 

Rolling her eyes, Ginny sits in a window seat, jamming her headphones on and turning the volume up--but it does her no good, because five seconds later Julio Mendoza is hovering by the empty seat next to Ginny, giving her a hopeful look. 

If Ginny’s honest, she had been hoping for a quiet trip to herself, but as usual, there is no way she can say no to their baby-faced rookie catcher. So she smiles and waves for him to sit down, slipping her headphones off her ears. 

“Hey, rookie,” she says. Julio flashes her that wide grin of his, and despite her mood, Ginny smiles back. 

Settling into his seat, Julio asks, “So how are you doing?”

“Fine,” Ginny replies, hoping to leave it at that. 

Julio doesn’t press her on it, exactly, but he gives her a look--eyebrows up, mouth pursed, and Ginny rolls her eyes in response. “What.”

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” Julio says, shrugging his shoulder. “Just, you know, for a girl whose face is all over the magazines because she broke up with a guy, it’d be impressive if you were fine.”

“That’s me,” Ginny says, deadpan. “I’m impressive as hell.”

Julio’s face breaks out into a grin at this. “Yeah, you are,” he agrees readily--and this is why Ginny can never shut the guy down, his hero worship of her is just too damn obvious. “But you also...” he stops for a moment, biting at his lip, before saying in a quieter tone now, “You’ve just seemed sad lately.”

Ginny blinks. She’d thought she was doing a pretty good job of keeping her mood out of the clubhouse, away from the team. “I’m okay,” she says after a moment. “Just annoying to be front-page news again, you know?”

Julio doesn’t entirely look like he’s buying it, but he nods. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Ginny says, sitting back in her seat. 

As the bus pulls out of the parking lot, Julio offers next, “Want to practice your Spanish with me?”

Ginny looks over at him, eyebrow raised. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Julio says, flashing her another smile. “My mom got really excited when I told her I was helping you learn Spanish, she keeps asking me how you’re doing.”

“You’re not actually teaching me, you know,” Ginny says. “I have Duolingo.” Julio gives her a look at this, and Ginny relents. “But it would be helpful to practice,” she agrees. “Thanks.”

Julio beams at her and immediately switches to Spanish, and Ginny tries to keep up as best as she can, watching her verb tenses the whole time. 

It’s actually pretty nice, and when they get on the plane to Milwaukee, Ginny ends up sitting next to Julio again. They call off the Spanish lesson so Julio can watch that Western show on HBO everyone’s gotten hooked on this year, and Ginny settles in for a short nap.

She wakes up mid-flight, disoriented, not remembering what dream she just had, but just remembering the feeling of her stomach dropping, anxiety curling up in her throat. 

Julio’s watching her now, and he takes one of his earbuds out of his ears. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Ginny says, making herself breath in slow and deep. “Just a weird dream, I think.”

*

They’re playing a series against the Brewers, and Ginny starts the first game. She’s dialled in from the first inning, and when she finally leaves the mound in the sixth, the Padres are up 4-0.

She gets plenty of claps on the back and praise, but it’s Mike’s face that sticks out the brightest, somehow, that pleased grin of his bright against his dark beard. “Nice work tonight, Ginny.”

It’s been two years since Mike retired, and there are still moments like this, where the sight of him in the dugout without his gear can catch Ginny off-guard. 

It’s silly, really--Mike retired as a World Series winner, and as a hitting coach he still travels with the team, he’s still a Padre, Ginny still sees him all the time--but here she is, coming off six scoreless innings, and _this_ is what’s tripping her up. 

“Thanks, Mike,” she says at last, going in for the fistbump. She doesn’t miss the way that Mike’s eyes narrow as he looks her over, but it’s fine, he’ll let it go. Probably.

*

“We won the game,” Julio wheedles, and not for the first time. “Come on, come out with us tonight.”

Ginny smiles, but holds firm. “No way. I’m too old, I need to get my sleep.”

“Oh my God, you’re twenty-seven, you’re not forty,” Julio whines, leaning against the doorway to her hotel room. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Don’t you want to watch Christiansen strike out with every girl at the bar?”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Ginny says, tilting her head in mock-consideration, “then the answer is definitely no.”

Julio groans. “Since when did you become an old lady, Ginny?”

“She’s always been an old lady,” Ginny hears from down the hall. Julio straightens up in a flash, and Ginny comes to the door to see Mike standing off to the side, hands stuffed in his pockets, grinning at them both. “Just doing a worse job of hiding it than usual.”

“This old lady is looking to get some beauty sleep,” Ginny retorts, but she can’t wipe the smile off her face. She looks over at Julio and has to bite back a laugh--if Julio’s hero-worship of Ginny is clear, his hero-worship of Mike Lawson can be seen from space. 

“Pity you’ve got plans with me tonight,” Mike says, and Ginny blinks. 

“I’m sorry, I do?” she asks.

Mike nods as if this is obvious. “Dinner. Get your jacket, let’s go.”

The thing is that Ginny is tempted--a quiet dinner with Mike sounds fantastic right now, but if she’s just turned down plans with Julio, she can’t then go around and run off with Mike. “Mike, I appreciate it, but--”

“But nothing,” Mike says firmly. 

“Please take her out,” Julio says, putting his hands together in a pleading gesture. “Before she completely forgets what fun is like, huh?”

“What is this, gang up on Ginny day?” Ginny demands.

“Yes,” Julio and Mike say in unison. 

Ginny groans, and Mike says, “I’m not taking no for an answer, Baker.”

“Of course you aren’t,” Ginny sighs, and Mike just gives her a wide, unrepentant grin. Julio’s beaming at them both now, clearly enjoying what their teammates to this day call ‘The Mike and Ginny Show’. “Fine,” she says at last, giving in, and Julio actually does a fistpump while Mike smirks. “Give me a minute to get ready, and I’ll come out for dinner.”

“You’re going to thank us,” Julio says, and Ginny tosses a skeptical look over her shoulder as she closes the door. The fact that she’s smiling as she gets ready is totally irrelevant--especially since no one can see her do it.

*

“Okay,” Ginny says, once the waitress has left with their orders. “What’s going on, Mike?”

Mike gives her a confused look over the rim of his wine glass. “What, other than us having a nice dinner?”

That look doesn’t fool her at all, of course--not that she believes for a second that it’s really meant to. Four years after she was called up to the Padres, and Ginny’s got a World Series ring, millions in her bank account, and the ability to read Mike Lawson’s face like it’s a picture book for children. 

“Mike,” Ginny says, lifting one eyebrow. 

Mike shrugs with one shoulder. “Maybe I just wanted to take you out to dinner, make sure you hadn’t turned into a hermit when I wasn’t looking.”

Ginny gives him a skeptical look, but she still has to repress the fond smile that’s tugging on the corners of her lips. “Mike,” she says again, drawing out the ‘i’ in his name. 

Mike sits back and looks at her. The lighting of the steak-and-grill restaurant they’re in is golden and low, and it hits his face just right, bringing out the warm glow to his skin. 

It’s ridiculous that even after all this time, Ginny can look at Mike Lawson, her old teammate, her ex-captain, the guy whose poster she had up on her wall once upon a time, that she can look at him and feel this frisson, this pull of… _something._

But after all this time, Ginny knows what to do with moments like these--take a breath, and wait for it to pass. 

“Maybe I’ve been worried,” Mike admits at last. 

“I’m fine,” Ginny says, looking straight at him. “Really, I am.”

“You’ve been sad lately,” Mike says, meeting her gaze. “And I don’t mean since the media found out about you dumping Jenkins, I mean you’ve been...you’ve been off for a while now. And I noticed, and I’m checking up on you. So that’s what this dinner is about.”

Ginny swallows. Mike’s dark gaze, in this moment, feels as bright and unrelenting as a spotlight. “I’ve been okay,” she tries to bluff, and Mike’s eyebrow twitches upward. 

“Ginny,” he says, his voice pitched low, his tone gentle. “Come on. Talk to me.”

Ginny clears her throat and looks away. “I didn’t dump Andre,” she corrects him, staring at her own wine glass. “Not the way you think I did.”

“I’m sure any Lakers fans in this bar will be thrilled to hear it,” Mike says. “So what, it was a mutual thing?”

“Yeah,” Ginny says, finally looking back up at him. “I know we looked...we looked great on paper, with our careers, our fame, our Q scores or whatever Amelia and Eliot talk about, and it worked. Me with baseball, him with basketball--he understood, you know? He understood the sacrifices you need to make for the game, what it's like being out on the road, keeping busy--it was a good relationship. A good, safe relationship that...just lasted six months too long.”

Mike’s face is full of sympathy. “So you’re torn up about it. Ginny, that’s--”

Ginny shakes her head, because if they’re going to talk about this, Mike needs to understand. “I’m not torn up about it, Mike. I wish the media wasn’t all over it, but--but I’m not torn up about him.”

She should be. Ginny should have been torn up about the breakup, because Andre Jenkins was _perfect_. The young star point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers, who loved his mom, his fans, and God, who came out to cheer Ginny on when she pitched at home, who respected her career and respected _her_ , whose face always broke out into a smile when she came into a room.

God, Ginny had liked him so much, she’d had so much fun with Andre...she just couldn’t feel anything more than that. And after a year, it was time to admit it.

“I just don’t...I don’t think I ever felt about him the way you should feel about someone, after a year of dating them,” Ginny says, staring down at her hands. “I should have, he was perfect--”

“But you can’t force it,” Mike says, and Ginny nods in agreement. 

“No, you can’t,” she said. “So I called it off, and we had to release a statement, and I don’t know who was more disappointed when they heard, my mom or Amelia.” Mike chuckles at that, and Ginny drags up a smile. “So, no, it’s not great right now, but--” She stops, chewing at her lip, but Mike’s still looking at her, so patiently, and if she can’t tell this to Mike, if she can’t explain what she’s feeling to _him_ \--

“I feel like I’m drifting,” Ginny admits at last, her voice small and quiet. She drags in a breath and makes herself continue, makes herself put into words what she’s been feeling for so long now. “I look at my life right now, and it’s wonderful, I know it is, and I’m grateful--” Her voice cracks a little at that last part, and there’s a crease between Mike’s eyebrows now, and he reaches out to touch her, his hand curling around hers on top of the table. 

“Ginny, hey,” he says, his voice so full of concern that it sets off an ache inside of her, deep in the pit of her stomach.

Ginny swallows once more, and finally makes the confession that’s been building up inside of her for months. “My entire life has been about getting me to this point. To making the majors, to--to proving that I belong here. And I’ve done it, I’m a starting pitcher for the Padres, we won the World Series, and I’m lucky. I know I’m lucky.”

“It’s not luck,” Mike corrects her, his voice gentle. “You worked hard to get here, Ginny.”

Ginny exhales. “I worked, and I struggled, and I’ve won--I accomplished my life’s goal at the age of twenty-five, and I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know who I am outside of baseball. I’m twenty-seven years old, and six days out of seven, I feel like a robot whose only job is to pitch real well, and it _sucks_.”

Ginny can’t look at Mike’s face as she’s saying this, she just stares at her hands, twisting her fingers together. Saying it out loud, the words feel small and petty, but they also feel _true_ , and she doesn’t know how to change it, or how to fix it. 

Mike doesn’t say anything at first, and then he says, very firmly, “You’re not a robot.” Ginny looks up at him, and Mike’s giving her a small smile, right before he says, “No robot could be the kind of pain in the ass you’ve been for the last four years, it’s just not possible.”

Ginny snorts, even as she tosses her napkin at Mike’s head. He catches it mid-air, of course, grinning, and Ginny says, “Come on, Mike, I’m being serious.”

“I know,” Mike says. “Just like I know you, and I know you’ll work this out.” Ginny gives him a tight smile at this, and Mike leans in over the table, insisting, “You will. Jesus, Baker, do you really not realize the sky’s wide open for you now?” Ginny bites at her lip, listening as he says, “You have proven yourself. Don’t you doubt that for a second. This is the good part now, right? Take a breath, look around and enjoy it. The rest will come to you in time.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Ginny says, tucking her hair behind her ear.

Mike’s still looking at her. “It will.” He looks like he’s about to say more, but the waitress shows up with their food, and the moment is lost. 

The conversation lightens up some after that, as they talk about Livan’s rehab for his torn ACL, how good Julio’s been since he got called up. They talk about Evelyn’s emails updating them on how everyone’s doing in Boston since Blip was traded, the general gossip that floats around the league.

And as is becoming increasingly common these days, the subject of Alyssa Calloway comes up. 

“So how is your little clone doing,” Mike asks, cutting into his steak with relish. “Your little Mini-Me down in AAA?”

Ginny gives him the eye. “Alyssa’s a white girl from Staten Island, she’s not my mini-anything. Also she’s fine, thank you for asking.”

Mike grins at her. “Girl’s causing some waves out there in Vegas, and not just with that knuckleball of hers either.”

Ginny does what she never would dare to do in front of anyone else, and snorts. “Don’t I know it.”

Ginny’s been getting questions about Alyssa Calloway all season long, ever since it became clear that Alyssa might be the first female player to follow Ginny into the majors, and ever since it became very clear that Alyssa was going to speak her mind, whether there was a microphone in her face or there wasn’t. And given her obvious talent, and given that Alyssa is currently engaged to a very nice girl named Erin--there are a _lot_ of fucking microphones.

Mike’s watching Ginny now with a knowing look, and Ginny shakes her head a little. “It’s just a lot, you know? I’ve met her, I like her, I think she’s talented...and if she makes it to the majors, they'll be comparing us for the rest of my career, and hers.”

“Probably beyond that,” Mike says. 

“Probably,” Ginny agrees, with a chuckle. “It’s just...it’s weird, you know? It’s almost like reliving it all over again, watching her.”

“Anything you’d do differently?” Mike asks casually. 

Ginny lifts a shoulder. “According to some, there’s a lot I should have done differently.”

Mike gives her a look. “Oh, and what, breaking barriers, pitching in a World Series, getting a ring--that’s supposed to be chump change?” 

Ginny gives him a smile, but says slowly, “If I had to do it again, all over again...I don’t know what I’d do differently. Probably try and care less about what people thought, say what I wanted to say.”

Mike tilts his head. “What’s stopping you now?”

“I...don’t know,” Ginny says, shaking her head, even as she laughs a little at herself. “I really don’t know.”

Mike watches her for a second longer, his eyes warm, and then he points at her food. “You’d better start eating that before I eat it for you, Baker.”

“Eat your own damn food,” Ginny mutters, but she turns her attention back to her sea bass, while Mike waves down the waitress to order another round of drinks. 

Ginny knows Mike, and she can see him making the decision to lighten the mood, the way he’s choosing to keep her laughing with hilarious stories from his career, the way he makes sure her glass is never empty. She sees him, she knows what he’s doing, and it still works. It works like gangbusters because Ginny is laughing at every ridiculous joke, she’s keeping up with Mike drink for drink, until her entire body is flushed and warm and she’s having to try and hide her constant smiles behind the palm of her hand. 

And Mike--Ginny’s exactly drunk enough that she can acknowledge, even if it’s only in the back of her head still, she can acknowledge that he looks good like this, with his unbuttoned collar, and the way he’s lounging in his seat, with those broad shoulders--

God, but she likes to look at him. Ginny’s always liked looking at Mike, she’s just never liked to think about what it meant, what it said about her and her feelings for him. 

But surely it has to be all right tonight. Tonight, it has to be okay for her to just _look._

Mike catches her watching him, and he smiles, a little quizzically. “Ginny?”

Ginny comes back to herself, quickly putting a smile on as she says, “I was just thinking...that we should have dessert.”

Mike cocks his eyebrow. “Yeah?” He smiles back at her, and says, “Yeah, you’re right, let’s do it.”

“Good,” Ginny says, fanning herself with her menu as she looks for their waitress. This restaurant is really nice, but it’s just a little too warm in here. 

*

Ginny is not drunk. She may-- _may_ \--be a little tipsy, but she’s not drunk. “I’m really not drunk,” she promises Mike as they make their way through the hotel lobby--although the way she’s holding onto his arm for support is maybe undercutting her statement a little. 

Really, she’s not drunk enough that she needs help to stand up, far from it. She’s just exactly tipsy enough to enjoy the feeling of Mike’s strong arm looped through hers. 

Mike’s snickering as they get into the nearest elevator, and he says, “Yeah, sure thing, rookie.”

“Okay, one, I’m not a rookie, and two, I’m not the one whose face is all flushed from those drinks,” Ginny says, poking at Mike’s red cheek. Mike just laughs and pushes her hand off, grinning down at her. 

Ginny smiles up at him, enjoying the companionable silence that’s fallen between them. It’s good, having someone you can just be quiet with, where you don’t have to fill up the silence with words. 

She should probably let go of Mike’s arm, though. Ginny bites her lip and keeps her arm where it is, as they keep going up and up in the elevator, until they’re finally on the right floor and walking arm in arm to Ginny’s hotel room. 

“And here you are,” Mike says as they reach her door, Ginny sliding her keycard through the lock to open it. 

She hovers in the doorway once it’s open, and Mike leans against the doorjamb, smiling down at her. “Hey. You know you’re going to be okay, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Ginny says. “Thanks for...for taking me out tonight. It was fun, and I needed it.”

Mike’s answering grin is a great sight. “Of course. Can’t have our star pitcher turning into a goddamn hermit, that’s just embarrassing.”

Ginny laughs, and on an impulse, an impulse that’s maybe been building up the entire night, she leans up and in and kisses Mike on the cheek. 

The second her lips brush his skin, Ginny knows she’s made a mistake. It’s not just the way he goes very still against her, not just that she can now smell his cologne, feel the heat of his body against hers.

It’s that in that second when she’s touching him, every idle thought Ginny’s pushed down, put to the side, all of it just rises up and builds until all she can think is, _oh, I want him._

Hardly breathing, Ginny pulls back. If it’s just her, if she’s the only one feeling this, then fine, fine, she can smile, make a joke, say goodnight--

Except Mike’s staring at her, his eyes wide and dark and so startled, his gaze darting down to her mouth, and the air between them is suddenly charged, electric. 

“Mike,” Ginny says, her voice low and unsure, sounding so young to her own ears, like the rookie she hasn’t been for years now. “Mike, I--”

“Ginny,” Mike breathes out, and he’s still staring at her mouth, and oh, now he’s leaning in closer, and she just, she just--

She just wants him _so goddamn much._ Ginny can’t make herself remember anything else, can’t even _think_ of anything else but that. So, her heart pounding in her ears, Ginny finally breaks, and gives in, and leans in once more to kiss Mike full on the mouth. 

Even with the way Mike was just looking at her, Ginny still isn’t sure how he’ll respond, and she definitely isn’t expecting him to inhale sharply before kissing her back, his mouth so hot against hers, his beard rasping against her skin. 

Oh God. Ginny would be a liar if she said she’d never thought about this before, about what it’d be like to kiss Mike Lawson, but nothing could prepare her for this, how fucking _good_ it feels to kiss him, to have him wind an arm around her waist, keeping her close, tucked in against his firm chest and--

And they’re doing this in a hotel hallway, in full view of anyone who could walk by. Ginny drags herself away, pulling back, breathing heavily as her eyes dart back and forth down the hallway, checking to make sure no one is there.

And then she looks back at Mike, who’s flushed and breathing just as hard as she is, his mouth wet, his eyes bright and dazed, and all Ginny can think is how she did that, she put that look on his face.

“We can’t do this here,” Ginny said, and just as Mike’s face is starting to cloud with disappointment, she adds, mouth dry from nerves, “So you should come inside.”

Mike’s eyes go a little wider, but he nods wordlessly. Ginny takes one step backwards, and then another, holding the door open for Mike as he follows her in, staying close to her, and the door is closing behind him, the click of the lock loud in the quiet room. 

Her eyes on Mike’s face the entire time, Ginny slowly peels off her leather jacket, tossing it in the direction of the desk and not particularly caring where it lands. She hadn’t bothered to get dressed up tonight, she’s wearing a plain button-down shirt and jeans, but from the way Mike’s staring at her, you’d think Ginny was wearing that skintight designer dress from the last movie premiere she’d attended in the offseason.

It’s all really working for her right now, if she’s honest. “So?” she asks, proud of how her voice barely wobbles. “You in, Lawson?”

Mike just looks at her for one long moment, and then comes forward, his hands wrapping around her hips as he pulls her in for another kiss, and Ginny’s already throwing her arm around his broad shoulders before their lips even touch. 

Ginny can’t remember the last time she felt so uninhibited, so shameless. She presses herself against Mike’s body, and Mike groans into her mouth and pulls her in even closer until she’s flush against him, can feel him getting hard in his jeans. Ginny lets herself rock against him, her hands sliding down his back until she’s grabbing his ass with both hands, and the tiny part of her brain that hasn’t been overwhelmed with desire is gleefully confirming that yes, Mike Lawson’s ass is just as spectacular as it looks. 

Ginny shivers as Mike’s hand moves to the front of her shirt, his fingertips brushing against the top button, and Mike pulls back a little, just far enough to ask breathlessly, “Okay?”

Ginny has to laugh, because she’s doing so much better than okay right now. “Yeah,” she says, grinning up at him. “Trust me, I’m good.”

She lets go of Mike’s ass to wrap her hand around both the button and Mike’s fingers, teasing him, “I could show you how buttons work, if you’ve forgotten.” Her eyes on Mike’s face, Ginny undoes the top button, her fingers brushing against Mike’s hand the whole while. “See? Easy.”

Mike’s eyes, after one long moment of being glued to that undone button, finally come back up to her face. “You,” he says, his voice a gorgeous rasp that sends a shiver down Ginny’s spine, “--are trying to kill me.”

“Nah,” Ginny says, still grinning up at him. Mike’s hand is still resting on her hip, the warmth of it sinking into her bones. “Just trying to see if you can keep up, old man.”

Mike smirks a little at this, and pulls her in for another kiss--a long, slow, deep kiss that leaves Ginny breathless and dazed when he finally pulls back. “Yeah,” Mike says against her mouth, and Ginny can tell he’s smirking still, “I think I’ve got it, thanks.”

He slowly starts to undo the rest of her shirt buttons, his fingers grazing against her with each pass, until her plain black sports bra is exposed, shirt hanging open. 

Mike reaches out to touch her without hesitation, his hands warm against her bare skin as his fingers skim up from her waist, teasing along the edge of her sport bra, his fingers almost brushing against the underside of her breast. 

“Mike,” Ginny says, leaning into his touch, the ache between her legs only getting worse. “Mike, come on.”

“Yeah,” Mike agrees, his voice low and gorgeous. “Yeah, I’ve got you.”

He helps her slip out of her shirt, Ginny’s skin prickling as his hands skim along her shoulders, her back--and then Mike’s pulling her in, his hands resting at the small of Ginny’s back, and he kisses her thoroughly.

“You too,” Ginny manages to get out against his mouth, tugging at the front of his shirt. “Mike, just--”

Mike kisses her fiercely at that, then pulls back far enough to quickly unbutton his shirt and strip it off his shoulders, pulling his white undershirt off in one smooth motion. 

Ginny’s seen Mike shirtless before countless times, stripped down to his boxers even--and she’s always been able to keep to the line, separate her appreciation for Mike’s broad shoulders and freckled back, shove it all in a box labeled Teammate: Do Not Touch.

But now she can look, now she can touch, now she can--Ginny can do anything she wants to, even if it’s only for tonight. 

“Ginny,” Mike prods, a crease appearing between his eyebrows, like there’s any chance she doesn’t approve of what’s she’s seeing. 

Ginny lifts her chin. “Go ahead,” she says. “Take the rest of it off too.”

A grin starts to appear on Mike’s face. “You too,” he says, nodding at Ginny’s jeans.

Ginny feels a smile spreading across her own face. “I can do that,” she agrees, letting a hand drop down, hooking her thumb into the waistband of her jeans. 

Holding Mike’s gaze the entire time, Ginny slowly undos the button to her pants, tugs the zipper down, and then does a little shimmy to work her tight jeans past her hips. 

It’s a pretty good move, and it’d be even better if Ginny hadn’t forgotten she was still wearing her shoes. “Fuck,” she mutters as she looks down at her feet, and Mike snickers. Ginny quickly straightens up, pointing a finger at Mike as she says, “Don’t start,” but she’s biting back laughter of her own as she says it. 

Mike’s grinning openly now, nodding at her boots as he asks, “You want some help?”

“I can do it myself--” Ginny starts, but Mike shakes his head, stepping in closer again. 

“Didn’t say that. I was asking if you wanted help.”

And before Ginny can respond, Mike’s swooping in, and swooping _her_ up into a fireman’s carry, walking over in three long strides to toss her onto the bed, Ginny breathless from laughter and from shock as she bounces on the mattress.

“Mike!”

Mike looks completely unrepentant, smiling down at her as he says, “See? I helped.”

“You _asshole_ ,” Ginny says, clapping a hand over her mouth to muffle her giggles. She can’t even explain why this is so funny, except that it is, except that it feels so...so right, that if she’s going to be with Mike like this, that it would involve laughter and jokes and camaraderie as well as her putting on a show and Mike stripping in front of her. 

It feels more real like this, and it’s that thought--that dangerous little thought--that finally stills her laughter. 

Mike’s still watching her, his face open and full of affection. “Here,” he says next, his hand reaching out to brush her knee, trailing along the calf of her leg. “Let me make it up to you?”

Ginny raises an eyebrow, but sits back on her elbow and watches, fascinated, as Mike gently eases one foot out of her boot, and then the other. He takes off her socks next, and then slides his hands up until he’s carefully pulling her jeans off her hips, working them down her legs, his dark eyes fixed on her face the entire time. 

It’s the careful deliberation that gets to Ginny, the idea that maybe this isn’t just an impulse, but a _choice_ to do this, to see where it’ll take them. But that idea is too big to handle at this moment, so she focuses instead on the feeling of Mike’s hands on her body.

Finally Ginny is left lying on the bed, wearing nothing her sports bra and her cotton underwear with the little flowers on them, and God, the way Mike is watching her right now.

“Turnabout’s only fair,” Ginny says. “Pants off, Lawson.”

Mike cocks an eyebrow, but immediately starts shucking off his shoes. Ginny tries to keep herself still, tries to hide the anticipation that’s growing inside of her, but she knows she’s failing. “So,” Mike says, undoing his belt buckle in a matter-of-fact way that is working better for Ginny than any showy striptease would, “You keeping that underwear on, or not?”

Ginny swallows. “Not,” she says after a second. She takes a breath, and sits upright so she can drag her bra over her head, shivering a little bit as her breasts are exposed. She turns her head away as she tosses the bra off to the floor, but when she finally looks up at Mike’s face--

Mike’s frozen still, and it would almost be funny if not for the look on his face, that dazed, awestruck look. “Christ, you’re beautiful,” he breathes out, lips parted. 

Ginny’s been getting comments on her looks since she was fifteen, but something about the heartfelt way Mike says it brings a smile to her mouth anyway, heat flooding her cheeks. “Thanks,” she says, but still can’t resist adding, “Now take the rest of your clothes off.”

Mike lets out a surprised bark of laughter, teeth flashing white in the dim lighting of the room. “Yeah, yeah, all right.” 

Ginny has to fight back the desire to take a deep breath, to tense up at the sight of Mike casually kicking off his jeans. It’s just Mike, she tries to remind herself. It’s just Mike, it’s just--

Except as Mike finally walks to the bed, wearing nothing but his black boxers, Ginny has to admit that this night isn’t _just_ anything. Ginny’s gaze keeps catching on Mike’s bare chest, on the scattered freckles across his broad shoulders, the thick thighs and scarred knees--

Mike slowly sits on the edge of the bed, a shockingly respectful distance from her, given their current undressed states. “Hey,” he says, in a quieter tone now. “You with me?”

It’s not all he’s asking her. “Yes,” Ginny says, dragging in a breath. “Yeah, I…” Slowly, she reaches out, lets her hand trail along Mike’s shoulder before running down the expanse of his chest, her fingertips just grazing his skin, Mike’s chest hair tickling her palm. 

There is something truly beautiful in the way that Mike’s gone so still at her touch. Finally lifting her eyes up from the sight of her hand on Mike Lawson’s bare chest, Ginny looks Mike squarely in the face and asks, simply, “Come here and kiss me again.”

There’s not a second of hesitation before Mike’s leaning in and kissing her like she asked, his mouth moving slow and sure against hers, until Ginny can’t think of anything else but this, Mike’s mouth against hers, his body slowly pressing her back down into the mattress.

Ginny can feel her heartbeat picking up as this progresses, as her thighs fall open, Mike sinking between them until she’s cradling the weight of him against her hips, shuddering as Mike rocks on top of her, the friction too blunt through the fabric of her underwear but still so good that she finds herself groaning into his mouth, her free hand sliding up to grip futilely at his short hair. 

“Fuck,” Mike growls against her lips, “Jesus Christ, I--” Whatever he’s about to say next gets cut off with a hiss as Ginny slides her hands down his back, deliberately gripping his hips to pull him in even closer against her, right up against where she’s aching the most, wet and slick and--

“--fucking _Christ_ , Ginny,” Mike says, panting, and the crack in his voice is the most beautiful thing Ginny’s heard all night. “All right, just hang on--”

He pulls back and Ginny makes a protesting noise, one that dies in her throat as Mike turns his attention to carefully moving his mouth, that gorgeous, talented mouth, down along her body, carefully licking and biting her breasts until Ginny’s whimpering at the feeling of Mike’s soft beard rasping against her sensitized skin, as a carefully deliberate scrape of his teeth against the underside of her breast has her gasping for breath. 

And then Mike slips his hand down between them, and rubs at her aching clit through her underwear, right where she’s already throbbing and wet and Ginny just _breaks_ , her hips rocking up into Mike’s hand even as she hisses out, “Mike, Jesus, come on and fuck me already.”

“Working on it,” Mike says, his eyes flicking up to look at her with amusement. 

“Mike--” Ginny says, her voice starting to snap, but then Mike’s finally, finally slipping a hand into her underwear, and the second he’s actually touching her, his callused fingers rubbing against her swollen clit, Ginny groans out with relief. “Fuck,” she pants out, spreading her legs open a little wider, urging Mike on.

Mike’s lifted his head now, watching her face even as he slowly starts to fuck her with his strong, thick fingers, stretching her open, and Ginny can’t seem to stop looking back at him, even as her mouth parts on another gasp, even as she’s trying to drag air back into her lungs. 

“Mike, goddammit,” she breaks at last, closing her eyes even as she reaches out to grip at his arm, needing something to hold on to, something to ground her. She’s so wet that she can _hear_ it as his fingers slide in and out of her, those slick noises that just get her even hotter, even more desperate, until she’s leaning back up to capture Mike’s mouth in a hot, dirty kiss, dragging him back down on top of her, still kissing him even as she fucks herself back on his hand, the tension spiralling inside of her, ratcheting up until she finally breaks completely, coming against Mike’s hand, shuddering apart in his arms. 

Mike never stops kissing her through it, his kisses falling off-center, on her mouth, her cheek, the very corner of her eye, until Ginny’s gulping in air, forcing herself to loosen her grip on Mike’s bare shoulders as she comes back down. “Holy shit,” she pants out, blinking up at the ceiling. “Holy fucking shit, Lawson.”

Mike’s breathing almost as heavily as she is at this point, his eyes lit up from desire, and Ginny makes a point of slowly letting her gaze travel down his body, lingering on the tent in his boxers, before she looks back up at his face. “So,” she says, letting herself drawl the words out, “--do you want me to suck you off first, or do you want to fuck me?”

Ginny gets exactly the reaction she’s hoping for at that, Mike’s entire face freezing for a second before he closes his eyes, clearly overcome. “God fucking dammit, Baker,” he grits out, jaw set. “Stop trying to kill me tonight.”

Ginny waits him out, and when he finally opens his eyes again, it’s to Ginny giving him a broad smile. “Fuck,” Mike says, but he’s smiling too, if ruefully. Then his gaze gets a little sharper, and he says, “Gorgeous as your mouth is, Ginny, I’d like this night not to end too soon, huh?”

“Works for me,” Ginny says, deliberately lounging against the pillow, stretching out her limbs in a pose she _knows_ looks good on her. 

“Jesus,” Mike mutters, and then he’s getting back off the bed, rummaging through his jeans before he gets a condom out of his wallet. And then Mike comes back to her, settling his weight back between her legs, going in for another kiss, hot and urgent.

Ginny loses track of how much time they spend like that, tangled up together on top of the sheets, kissing until her mouth almost feels over-sensitized, lips tingling as Mike drags his hands over every inch of her body, the calluses on his hands making her shiver and arch up into his touch. 

Ginny keeps pushing for more, keeps trying to wrap a leg around his hips so that she can get better leverage, rub herself against Mike’s cock, thick and hard in his boxers, which somehow he’s _still_ wearing, but Mike keeps the upper hand all the while, bracing himself above her so that she can’t pull him down the way she wants. “Goddammit,” Ginny mumbles at last, her mouth brushing against Mike’s cheek, the scrape of his beard against her kiss-swollen mouth sending a tiny shock through her. “Mike, come the fuck on and just--”

She feels Mike shudder against her, and then he’s saying, his voice a low rasp, “Fuck. Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

And then, while Ginny processes that Mike’s been trying to make this last for as long as possible, he’s pulling back once more, dragging Ginny’s ruined underwear down and off her legs, and then efficiently stripping out of his boxers, his erection springing free. 

Holy shit, this is happening. It’s ridiculous to think that right now, because this has _been_ happening since the second Ginny kissed Mike in the hallway, since the second she made the deliberate choice to invite him in--

Ginny takes a deep breath, and makes her body relax, letting herself reach out to touch Mike as he carefully rolls the condom on. The crease that’s appeared between Mike’s eyebrows eases a little as she touches him, and Ginny finally recognizes the expression on his face.

“Hey,” Ginny says as Mike resettles himself between her legs, bracing himself above her with a hand planted firmly on the mattress. Ginny doesn’t know what she should say next, though, and as Mike pauses to look at her, she blurts out, “I’m having a good time tonight.”

She could bite her tongue the second she says it, is so tempted to put a hand over her face from shame, as Mike stares at her incredulously before cracking up. “Well, shit, rookie, I fucking _hope_ so.”

Ginny lightly thumps his arm with her fist, even as she’s smiling. “Not your rookie, remember?”

She’s not expecting the way Mike’s face softens at that, doesn’t see it coming when he lifts up a hand to brush his fingers along her cheek. “Yeah, you are,” he tells her, his voice quieter now. 

Ginny stares up at him, at the face she can read better than anyone else’s, and swallows back the rise of emotion she’s feeling. “Mike,” she says softly, her fingertips trailing along his spine. “Mike, come on.”

And finally he does, finally he’s slowly pushing into her, his thick cock stretching her open and filling her up, Ginny gasping as he sinks into her.

“Oh God,” Mike breathes out, closing his eyes, his chest heaving. He holds himself still at first, his face dropping into the curve of Ginny’s neck, his breath coming in hot puffs of air against her skin. Ginny just clutches at his back and tries not to move, but all the while desire’s rising up inside of her, until she’s shifting her hips almost despite herself, pressing for more. 

“Mike,” she says, her voice hushed and desperate, her fingers digging into the solid muscle of his back. “Mike, Jesus, just _fuck me_ \--”

“Fuck,” Mike groans, but he’s finally moving now, thrusting in and out of her slowly at first, Ginny doing her best to urge him on, pushing for more, faster, _harder_ \--and finally Mike gives it to her, gives her exactly what she wants, until the headboard is rattling and Ginny’s swearing and clawing at his back, the two of them moving in a desperate rhythm, every thought driven right out of Ginny’s head until all she can see, feel, think of is Mike, and how he feels inside of her, how he’s driving her absolutely insane. 

“Oh my God, oh my God,” she keeps saying, staring blindly up into his face, lust and affection rising up inside of her like a wave, and then it crashes over her head and she’s coming again, her voice cracking as she calls out Mike’s name. 

She clings to Mike’s shoulders as he fucks into her, lasting only a short time until he’s coming, cursing softly under his breath. He collapses on top of her once he’s finished, the weight of him too much, too heavy, too solid and real--except that it’s not that, not at all. 

_I don’t want you to leave,_ Ginny thinks, clear as a bell, and bites her lip so as not to say it out loud. 

Except--except if she can’t say this to Mike, after what they’ve just done…

“Don’t go just yet,” she whispers up to the ceiling. Mike stirs at last, wearily lifting his head to look at her. 

“I wasn’t going to,” he tells her, his honesty hitting Ginny in the chest like an anvil. “Not unless you asked me to leave.”

Ginny looks at him, and scrapes up whatever courage she’s still got left. “Okay. Then don’t go.”

Mike doesn't answer her with words, just kisses her very softly on the mouth, and Ginny sighs and takes it as a yes. 

She doesn’t actually mean to fall asleep soon after, still tangled up in Mike’s arms, but absolutely nothing about this night was what Ginny had originally planned, so that can just go on the list...along with everything else she’s done. 

*

The morning after, Ginny wakes up early with Mike’s hand on her hip, to the sight of Mike sleeping peacefully in the bed next to her, and with panic rising up in her throat. 

She just went and fucked Mike Lawson. Four years of friendship, of Mike being one of the most reliable, consistent parts of Ginny’s life--and now it’s all up in the air, because of one crazy impulse.

Except that’s not true, and Ginny can’t quite trick herself into believing that it is. Whatever else last night was, it was also a choice, and one she didn’t make alone. 

Ginny tries to hang on to that, to the memory of the look on Mike’s face when he’d walked into her hotel room last night, and settles back into the bed, waiting for Mike to wake up. Her alarm’s not set to go off for another hour, and she’s always been an early riser. They’ve got time before--before anyone else on the team would be reasonably up and about. 

She can wait. 

Ginny’s resolution to wait patiently until Mike wakes up on his own lasts about--oh, three minutes or so. Staring at his sleeping face, Ginny reaches out to poke him in the shoulder. “Mike.”

“Mpmf,” is the only response she gets, and Ginny pokes him harder. 

“Mike, wake up.”

Mike blearily opens his eyes, blinking at her until his gaze focuses, becomes alert and aware. Then he just stares at her. “Uh, hi. Hey.”

Ginny gives him a nervous smile, too keyed up to tease him like she normally would, given an opening like that. “Hey.”

Mike seems to become aware at last that his hand is still resting on her hip--his fingers flex like he’s thinking of pulling back, and Ginny’s stomach clenches at the thought, but after a second his hand goes still, and he keeps it where it is. 

“So,” Mike says, in a measured voice that means he’s trying to hide how he’s feeling until he gets a signal from her, “--how are you feeling?”

“Good,” Ginny says, resisting the urge to fidget. “I feel, you know, all right.” Mike’s watching her, and Ginny’s stomach lurches yet again--God, it’s ridiculously unfair how good he looks, even with his hair in disarray and a pillow crease across half of his forehead. 

Ginny grips at the sheets for one moment, wavering, and then she blurts out, “I’m not sorry about last night.” She can feel her face growing hot as Mike stares at her, but she pushes on anyway. “Last night was...it was really good, and I’m not sorry that it happened.”

Mike exhales softly, his mouth parting into a relieved grin. “I’m not sorry either.” Ginny smiles back, relief rising up to the surface, but then Mike says next, “Ginny…” He trails off, and sits up onto his elbow, looking down at her with a more serious expression on his face. 

Ginny takes a sharp breath as he starts tracing circles onto her hip, beneath the sheets covering her body. “Listen,” Mike says quietly. “If last night was just about having a good time, no strings attached, then okay, I can handle that.” 

His fingers are still moving along her bare skin, and Ginny’s heartbeat is starting to pick up, getting louder in her ears as Mike speaks. 

“But,” Mike says, and she can hear the nerves in his voice, see it in the hesitant twist of his mouth. “But if maybe you’re looking for...for more than that, then I could handle that too.”

Logically, Ginny knows the air hasn’t actually left her lungs--but it still feels that way. “You could handle that?” she repeats, very quietly.

“Yeah,” Mike says, looking her squarely in the eye now, deliberately leaving himself open and vulnerable, just letting her see...all of it. “I’m in a pretty good place these days, and you…” Ginny lets out a shuddering sigh as Mike finally lets go of her hip, but only so that he can touch her face, his fingers so warm and gentle against her cheek. “You’re pretty damn fantastic,” Mike tells her. “And I’d be a fucking idiot if I didn’t say something now.”

The timing is terrible. If the media finds out, it’ll be a circus--never mind that Mike’s retired now, it’ll still be a circus. And if this goes badly, Ginny risks losing one of the most important friendships of her life. 

Ginny’s a smart girl, she knows all of that. She just...can’t stand to play it safe any longer. Not when she’s already come this far, not when Mike’s lying there next to her in this bed, looking at her and making that kind of offer, putting himself on the line and still leaving her the out. 

Not when she can still feel the echoes of his hands on her body, of his lips on her skin. 

“Okay,” Ginny says, sitting up, letting the sheets pool around her waist. 

“Okay?” Mike repeats, eyebrow going up, but Ginny cuts off whatever he’s about to say next by kissing him, just leaning in and fitting her mouth against his, and letting that be the answer to his question. 

And in that exact moment, with the early morning light starting to brighten the room, with Mike’s mouth against hers, with Mike pressing her back into the bed that’s still warm from their bodies, all Ginny can think is the same thing she thought last night, right before she set all of this in motion-- _oh, I want him_.

And right then, that’s enough for her.


	2. Chapter Two

The team take the series against the Brewers, and drive down to Chicago in the team bus. It’s a two hour drive, and Ginny only hesitates for a moment before sitting down next to Mike. He shoots her a sidelong glance as she settles into her seat--not disapproving, but long and considering. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Ginny says, giving him a quiet smile--one that gets a little bigger at the look Mike gives her. 

The only thing better than being able to read Mike’s face so easily is knowing exactly why he’s got that look on his face--that incredulous look, eyes lit up from excitement and his mouth curling up just so at the corners, almost but not quite hidden by the beard.

Ginny turns away to face the front, smiling, but she behaves as the rest of the team boards the bus, aside from letting her leg brush against his as she pretends to stretch out in her seat. 

“Ginny,” Mike says quietly.

“What?” Ginny says innocently, eyes going wide, but she can’t hold back the grin anymore. Mike gives her a look, and then he reaches down to grip her knee, his fingers firm but not too hard or rough, and Ginny doesn’t actually mean to shiver at him touching her like that, but it happens anyway. 

“Is that supposed to be discouragement,” she says, very quietly--never mind that nearly everyone around them’s got their headphones in or is loudly discussing that week’s episode of World War Z.

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Mike says, just as quietly, his thumb going in small circles against the side of her knee, almost but not quite on her inner thigh and Jesus Christ, in that one moment, Ginny wants nothing more than to be able to take his hand and drag it up even higher along her leg, or even--

Telling herself to take it easy, Ginny glances around once, just to make sure that nobody is really watching them, before she leans in to whisper, “Your room tonight?”

From this close, she can see the way that Mike swallows at this, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat before he says just as softly, “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

“Okay,” Ginny says, sitting back in her seat--but not before she trails a fingertip along the back of Mike’s hand, tracing along the veins and tendons, for long enough that she hears Mike inhale sharply. 

As the last of the coaches get on the bus, Ginny’s hands are folded in her lap, and she’s watching the TV like there’s nothing going on. Nobody takes a second look at either of them, even if Mike’s face is surprisingly red for a good fifteen minutes. 

*

On the outside, Ginny’s playing it cool. She’s a pro at projecting what she needs to, and for that first game at Wrigley Field, she's in the groove, keeping herself focused on the game, on baseball, on chatting with her teammates as they battle to get a win against the Cubs--not that the Cubs are making it easy for them. For all that Adrian's pitching well, for all the hits their batters are getting, the Cubs are matching them hit for hit, strikeout for strikeout, until they finally fall behind for good in the seventh, and leave the stadium with a loss. 

"You coming out tonight?" Omar asks her as they head out to their hotel on the team bus.

"No, I've got plans already,' Ginny says without thinking, and then barely keeps from wincing as Omar gives her a curious look.

"Yeah, like what?"

"Netflix," Ginny blurts out. Mike's walking a few feet in front of her, deep in conversation with one of the coaches, but she can see his back tensing up a little, can tell that he's doing his absolute best not to look at her over his shoulder.

Omar raises his eyebrows. "Yeah, you're having a wild time tonight, huh."

"Yeah, that's me," Ginny says lightly, thankful he doesn't seem to be pressing her on it. "I'm a real party girl."

Mike's still not looking back at her, but the tension in his shoulders has clearly eased, and he's walking with a looser stride now. Ginny watches him go, biting her lip, and as much as she tries to shove the anticipation down, all she can think is, _soon soon soon._

*

The entire trip down from her hotel room to Mike's, Ginny feels faintly ridiculous at how worked up she is. There is no reason for her to feel nervous at the thought of someone seeing her walking into Mike's room, nobody is going to blink twice at this point at the sight of her hanging out with Mike in her down time. 

Her sneaking out of his room early in the morning-- _that_ might raise some eyebrows, if she’s careless or unlucky enough to get caught. 

It'll be fine, it'll be fine. Ginny's got her phone with her, her alarm’s set to a ridiculously early hour of the morning, she'll be up and out before anyone else--from the team or random hotel guests--can catch a glimpse of her doing the walk of shame.

Still, Ginny takes the stairs rather than the elevator, keeps her hood drawn low over her head, and she walks through the hotel’s hallway briskly, because anything else would be too damn obvious. 

Mike answers the door immediately after she knocks, fast enough that she has to think he’s been waiting there since she sent a text saying she was coming down. His face immediately breaks out into an amused grin as he looks her over, taking in her black hoodie and dark blue Padres sweatpants. “You planning on robbing a liquor store after this, Baker?”

Ginny makes a show of shrugging her shoulders, even as her heartbeat starts to pick up at the sight of Mike standing there, wearing clothes she’s seen him in a million times before--except she wasn’t looking at him like this before, except they weren’t doing this before. “I might, if there’s nothing better to do,” she teases as she slips in past Mike into the room. 

Mike’s grinning as he lets the door fall shut behind them. “Oh, I think I can show you something better,” he tells her, with a wink and a smirk.

Ginny wants to play it cool, she does, but she can’t help but smile, even as she tilts her head and slowly drags down the zipper to her hoodie, peeling it open to show that she’s wearing nothing but a sports bra underneath.

The smirk dies on Mike’s face, and he stands still, eyes dark as Ginny slips out of the hoodie, the air cool on her bare shoulders and back. 

Ginny tilts her head, lets the challenge come through on her face. “Well? You going to show me or what?”

When Mike steps forward to sweep her up into a kiss, his mouth firm and demanding on hers, his hands sliding around her waist, Ginny figures she’s got her answer. 

*

Much later that night, Ginny’s dozing in Mike’s arms, dimly aware of his fingers skating along her spine. She curves into him a little bit closer, tightening her arm around his chest, and feels the rumble of his voice against her ear as he asks, “So how do you want to play this out?”

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, and then Ginny lifts her head from his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

Mike still hasn’t stopped touching her. “I mean, like--you want to keep it like this for now, right? The sneaking around and stuff?”

“I’m not going to ask you to wear a disguise, if that’s what you mean,” Ginny says carefully. “But--yeah, I’d like to stay under the radar.”

Mike nods. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Ginny prods, just to be sure. “You’re cool with that?”

His mouth curls up into a smile. “Yeah. I’m not looking to land on any magazine covers, Ginny. I just--” His hand pauses mid-motion for a moment, and he admits, his voice quieter now, “I just want to give you what you need. That’s all.”

“I know,” Ginny says, and leans in to kiss him, a soft brush of her mouth against his, trust and emotion pulling her forward. 

They’re both too tired to do anything more than kiss at that point, and Ginny’s not sure of when she drifts off, but the next thing she remembers is blearily slapping at her phone, at an hour so early that it’s mostly still dark outside.

Mike’s arm tightens around her, and he rumbles out, eyes still shut, “Don’t go yet.”

“I have to,” Ginny says with real regret, pushing her hair out of her face. This thing is so new, and yet it already feels natural to lean in over Mike and kiss his cheek, stroke his face with the back of her fingers. Mike’s arms tighten around her even more, and Ginny kisses the side of his face again in apology, murmuring, “I have to go.”

Mike grumbles, but eventually loosens his grip, pressing a kiss to her mouth, her throat. Of course, that just makes Ginny want to linger--but she can’t, she can’t stay. Dammit. 

Mike’s sleepily blinking up at her when she finally pulls back. “Your room next time?” he murmurs, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. 

“Yeah,” Ginny promises, kissing him one last time before she finally drags herself out of the warm bed, pulling on her clothes while Mike lounges against the pillow and watches her drowsily. 

There’s no one in the hallways as Ginny walks back to her own hotel room, which is a relief. A cold sort of relief, but relief all the same. 

*

Ginny hates playing in St. Louis. _Hates_ it, no matter how much she and the Padres try to downplay it in the media, everyone still knows the score, given what happened two years ago, given that Cardinals fans still boo Ginny every time that she’s on the mound--and sometimes booing her even when she’s not. 

It shouldn’t bother her, not after two years since the NLDS series that set this rivalry off in the first place, not when Matt Foster isn’t even on the Cardinals anymore, and not when it was Ginny and the Padres that came out on top in every way that mattered--in the series, in the media, in the history books.

And yet, here Ginny is, still hating to play in Busch Stadium. 

It doesn’t help that today’s game is a clusterfuck from the get-go. Their bullpen is wiped out, they’re tied 7-7, and the game just keeps dragging on until finally in the thirteenth inning, Ginny’s called in for relief. 

“You got this?” their manager, Butler, asks Ginny quietly, a crease in his forehead. He’s been manager of this team since the middle of last season, and Ginny respects him--but she also can tell he’s still a bit uneasy with her, sometimes. Like right now.

“Yeah, I’ve got this,” Ginny says, squaring her shoulders, looking him straight in the eye and making sure nothing shows on her face.

There’s a roar from the crowd as she warms up, boos ringing out from various corners of the stadium as her face is shown on the big screens. Ginny refuses to let her mask crack, even as the skin on the back of her neck prickles. 

It only gets worse as she walks to the mound. Ginny feels the mask freezing onto her face, and Julio runs out to meet her, his catcher’s mitt covering half his face, but still not hiding the worry in his eyes. 

“You good?”

Ginny look at him squarely. “Been through worse.”

Julio grimaces at this. “Doesn’t make it right.” He glances around, muttering, “God, these fucking--”

“Not now,” Ginny snaps out. Julio nods at this, chastened, and Ginny exhales. “So what have you got?”

She gets through the next inning and a half without too much skin taken off her nose, but it doesn’t matter. They end up losing the game when Sobel hits a home run off Winters in the fifteenth inning, and as they make their way out of the dugout, Ginny’s biting at the inside of her cheek, the boos from the crowd still ringing in her head, no matter how hard she tries to drown them out. 

God fucking dammit. 

Her teammates make a point of crowding around her afterwards, clapping her on the back in support, saying things like, “I always knew St. Louis was a hellpit, but goddamn, they sure proved it today.”

Ginny tries to put a smile on her face in response, but she knows no one is buying it. And fuck, she can feel Mike’s eyes on her, but she can’t look at him right now, she just can’t.

Her day gets even worse once the reporters are let into the clubhouse, the ones that aren’t already surrounding Winters making an immediate beeline for her. Ginny turns away to let out an exhale where they can’t see her, and then turns around to face them, hands on her hips, chin tilted up. “Don’t suppose anyone wants to talk to me about the weather today, huh?”

Some of them give her sympathetic smiles, but the questions come immediately--what does she think about the boos, does she have any comment on the behavior of Cardinals fans, does she think it’s unfair to--

“I keep my focus on things I can control,” Ginny says in as even a tone as she can. 

“But given the context, Ginny--”

“The context is that we lost today,” Ginny says, cutting the Cardinals beat reporter off. “Now, if you guys want to ask me questions about baseball, I can do that. Anything else, I’m not commenting on.”

“But Ginny,” the reporter says, not backing down, “--this has been an ongoing issue ever since the 2018 NLDS series, since the Matt Foster incident--”

“Is that what we’re calling it,” Ginny mutters before she can stop herself, and as she sees the gleam of interest in everyone’s faces, Ginny grits her teeth and does her best to head it all off at the pass. “Look. My job is to _pitch_. Today I did my job. If you’re looking for a story, go talk to the people that booed. This is about them, not me.”

It’s the truth, and it won’t cause any additional controversy, so as Amelia would say, it’s a win all around. And if it’s only the tip of what Ginny wants to say, if she’s holding back so much that she’s nearly choking on it--that’s her problem. No one else’s.

*

When Mike knocks on her hotel room door that night, Ginny answers the door wearing an oversized Padres sweatshirt and yoga pants, her hair braided for sleep. A sexy rendezvous is, frankly, the last thing on her mind right now. “Hey,” she says, a little flatly.

“Hey,” Mike replies. “Can I come in?”

Ginny’s got Netflix set up on her laptop, she’s got calls and texts on her phone that she’s resolutely ignoring--she’d answered Amelia’s call but that was it--and if she has to actually _talk_ to anyone about the Cardinals or the booing fans or, God forbid, racism in America, she might actually scream. “Sure,” she says. “Just as long as we don’t talk about today.”

Mike purses his mouth at this, but nods. “I can do that.”

“Okay,” Ginny says, and turns to walk back to her bed, knowing that Mike will follow. 

They end up lying down together on the bed, Ginny reclining against Mike’s broad chest as they watch Daredevil. Neither one of them says much, but Mike’s body is warm and solid against hers, and little by little, Ginny can feel the tension leaving her.

Until Mike’s phone buzzes for the third time that evening. He hits ignore, but Ginny twists around to raise an eyebrow at him. “You’re a popular guy tonight,” she says.

Mike scoffs. “Please, I’m always a popular guy. You’re looking at the life of the party right here.”

“Mike,” Ginny says, flicking her eyebrow up just a little bit higher.

Mike caves. “Amelia might be checking in.” Ginny waits, and Mike adds, “Also Eliot. And Julio. And Livan back in San Diego--he’s offering to get on a red-eye, set the Cardinals’ stadium on fire.”

Ginny stares at him. “He wants to commit arson.”

“Well, yeah,” Mike says, as though this is a totally reasonable sentence. 

Ginny scoffs, and settles back against Mike’s chest, folding her arms as she says, “Yeah, that’ll be great--one more thing I can get blamed for.”

She could slap herself the second she lets those words slip, and sure enough, Mike doesn’t drop it. “Hey, Ginny, come on. No one’s blaming you for anything, this isn’t on you.”

Ginny breathes in and out through her nose. “No,” she says at last, her tone remarkably even--but she can feel Mike tensing against her, because after four years, he knows what it means when her voice sounds like that. “No, because it was Foster who called me a black bitch during Game 3 of the NLDS pennant, and _you_ were the one who punched him in retaliation, and it was both benches that started a giant brawl on a live national broadcast, and it’s the Cardinals fans that are still booing me for it even now. It was everyone else doing that--all I did was pitch. And yet somehow it’s two years later, and I’m the one still dealing with the fallout.” She swallows hard, trying to get the bitterness out of her throat, and failing. “So yeah, Mike, it is in fact on me.”

Every muscle in her body feels like it’s aching, she’s so tense--and then Mike’s arm moves to curl around her waist, his hand gently resting against her stomach, so lightly she could almost pretend it’s not there.

“What do you need,” Mike asks her quietly. “Right now, what do you need me to do?”

Ginny makes herself breathe out, long and slow. “I need you to sit here and watch this show, and let me be angry, and just--don’t try to fix this.”

“Okay,” Mike promises, and for the rest of the night, he’s as good as his word. They make it through half a season of Daredevil, Mike doesn’t answer his phone for the entire night, and Ginny falls asleep that night fully clothed, her hand fisted in the front of Mike’s shirt, her face pressed to Mike’s shoulder.

It doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t change anything. But when Ginny wakes up that morning, she can answer the concerned texts and calls without her stomach turning itself into a knotted mess, which is something. It’s better, at least.

She still doesn’t look herself up on Twitter, though. Ginny’s got a better sense of self-preservation than that.

One welcome distraction is the call she gets from Alyssa Calloway--Alyssa’s checking in, sure, but their friendship is still new enough that she’s not going to press the way that Ginny’s older friends would, so it’s easy for Ginny to change the subject. 

Especially when Alyssa’s got news of her own to share. “I’ve got an interview with Out magazine coming up,” Alyssa says, the excitement clear in her voice. “It’s supposed to be this big, in-depth interview, they’ve got the reporter flying out to Vegas to watch some of my games.”

“Yeah?” Ginny prods. A part of her thinks it’s possibly not the smartest idea for Alyssa to do this interview at this stage, but Alyssa’s got smart people in her corner--she’s got Ray Burke, one of the top baseball agents in the game, representing her, and it’s not Ginny’s call to make. 

“I know it could be a lot,” Alyssa says, like she’s reading Ginny’s mind. “But--I don’t know, I’m kind of excited? It’ll be nice to get the chance to talk to a reporter that’s not another old straight white guy for once.”

Ginny laughs. “Yeah, I hear that,” she says ruefully. “Just...keep your guard up too, you know? Be careful, especially when you’re going on the record.”

Alyssa giggled. “You sound like Ray, he’s always telling me I can’t give away the farm.”

“Well, I don’t know what farm he’s talking about,” Ginny says, and Alyssa laughs harder at this, “--but he’s probably right, and considering you’re paying him 10% for his advice--”

“I should probably take it, I know,” Alyssa says, sighing a little. “But what will I _do_ if I’m not allowed to play the rebel?”

“I don’t know, stay out of trouble for once?” Ginny offers, but she’s laughing now as well. “Go take your fiancee out to dinner, she deserves it for putting up with you.”

“Rude!” Alyssa protests. “What the hell, Baker, that is so rude. I mean, it’s probably accurate, but also rude as hell.”

“That sound you hear is me playing the world’s tiniest violin,” Ginny says. “But for real, how is Erin doing, how’s she adjusting to Vegas?”

“She’s good,” Alyssa says, but there’s a doubtful note to her voice now. “Just--I don’t know, it’s hard for her being so far away from home, our families. And I think she’s having a hard time fitting in with the other wives and girlfriends, which sucks…”

Ginny settles into her bed and listens to Alyssa talk, and offers some ways to help Erin settle in--Ginny’s never really been in Alyssa’s position--or Erin’s, for that matter--but she’s seen how Evelyn had to deal with things in her marriage to Blip, and can offer that perspective, at least. 

“Jesus, listen to me,” Alyssa groans eventually. “Here I am calling to check up on you, and I turn it into a whole me me me thing.”

“It’s fine, I asked,” GInny says, but she takes a second before adding, “And--it’s actually kind of nice, focusing on something else right now. It’s a good distraction.”

“Okay,” Alyssa says, thankfully not making it weird. “In that case, I am full of distractions, hit me up whenever you need to, Baker.”

Ginny chuckles. “You know, I actually might.”

*

At the end of a very long road trip, literally all Ginny wants is to wake up in her own bed. Well, she wants to wake up in her own bed with Mike, if she’s being specific. 

And finally, finally, they’re landing back in San Diego, with a day off tomorrow even, and Ginny steps off the bus, blinking at her car--and then she turns to Mike, who is right on her heels. 

“Hey,” she says, starting to smile. “You should come over and spend the night.”

Mike flashes her a grin. “Was waiting for you to ask.”

Ginny grins and steps in a little closer, because no one is watching and because she can, because she just wants to. “Well, I’m asking you now. You in?”

“Obviously,” Mike scoffs, but she can see the way his eyes have lit up at her question. “Do I look like a dummy?” Ginny pulls a mock-considering face at this, wrinkling her nose in pretend thought, and Mike groans. “Yeah, yeah, I walked right into that one.”

“A little bit,” Ginny says, grinning at him. Mike rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling and for one second--for one second, Ginny pictures herself leaning in and kissing him, in full sight of the players and the coaches and the fans. She won’t, of course she won’t, but--she can just see it, crystal clear in her mind’s eye.

“Meet you at my place?” Ginny says, because that’s what she can do, that’s what they’re doing now--keeping this quiet, keeping this under the radar. 

“Yeah,” Mike says, giving her the smile she loves to see. “I’ll meet you there.”

*

They have a good evening together, making dinner side-by-side in Ginny’s apartment with what’s left in her refrigerator--Ginny’s got a cleaning service that comes in regularly, but her groceries aren’t set to be delivered until the day after tomorrow, she thinks--and Mike’s been in her house a million times before, he’s been over for dinner before, and yet the thought keeps sneaking up on Ginny regardless--she could get used to having him here like this. It’s a nice sight, seeing Mike putter around her kitchen, knowing where she keeps her forks and her dishes, sending a dubious look to the pressure cooker where the chili’s cooking. 

He looks like he fits here, and Ginny’s cheeks go warm at the thought. 

Also, the part where they fuck on Ginny’s couch is pretty fantastic too, just to be clear. 

But somehow the part of the evening that sticks in Ginny’s head the most is when she’s in her bathroom, braiding her hair before bed, and glances over to see Mike watching her from the bed through the open door, his gaze fond. “What?”

Mike shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “Nothing.”

“Uh huh,” Ginny says, but when she turns back to the mirror to finish braiding her hair, there’s a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. 

Once she’s got her silk headwrap secured around her head, Ginny comes to the bed and slides in beneath the comforter, immediately curling herself up against his bare chest, Mike’s arm settling around her as she does..

_I want to get used to this,_ Ginny thinks, and hesitates only for a moment before saying, “Hey, we should go out for breakfast tomorrow.”

Mike only pauses briefly before asking, “You sure about that?”

Ginny shrugs, keeping her voice casual. “It’s San Diego. No one’s going to notice, or care. And I don’t have a lot of groceries in the fridge, so we’ll just go out to eat. It’ll be fine.”

Ginny believes what she’s saying, she really doesn’t think going out to breakfast with Mike will get any attention, but--she also just _wants_ to go. She wants to just go out with Mike to her favorite neighborhood cafe, to sit across from him at a tiny table and watch him smile at her over their plates, maybe even hold his hand as they walk out into the street--

That last part can’t happen. Not without landing on the cover of every celebrity magazine in the country. But the rest--Ginny can have that at least, she’s not asking for the moon. Just breakfast.

“Okay,” Mike’s saying now, his fingertips trailing down her bare arm as he speaks. “But this place better have decent omelets, I’m warning you now.”

Ginny smiles. “Best omelets in the city, I promise.”

*

Ginny’s right, as it turns out--her breakfast with Mike, and their subsequent trip to Ginny’s local co-op, doesn’t make the covers of any magazines.

It does make TMZ. Not as an expose, thank God, but as a brief nonsense story detailing how Ginny’s supposedly doing in the wake of her breakup with Andre, how she’s holding herself together, bouncing back by hanging out with old friends--like retired Padres catcher Mike Lawson.

Looking at the photographs, Ginny can’t imagine how anyone can look at them and not see what’s happening--she feels like it’s written all over their faces at that cafe, the way Mike’s watching her, how he’s leaning in to catch what she’s saying, the smile on her own face as they’re walking down the street. 

If someone knew what they were looking for, they could see the entire story in those photographs.

TMZ doesn’t see it. All the same, Ginny is not at all surprised when Amelia calls her up while Ginny’s driving to Petco, that same day the photos on TMZ go live. And because Ginny knows what’s coming, she’s already braced for the careful, deliberate tone Amelia takes as she asks, “So these photos that TMZ has of you and Mike are pretty interesting.”

“Mm hm,” Ginny says, pausing at a red light. 

“Ginny. Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything involving Mike?”

Ginny exhales. If she’s being honest, they both know what’s happening--Amelia’s probably had it figured out since those photos were released, but that doesn’t change the fact that she and Amelia have a deal. When Amelia needs to know something, really needs to know, Ginny will give her a straight answer. Like right now.

“Yeah,” Ginny says slowly. “Yeah, there is.”

There’s a long pause on the other end, and the traffic light’s turned green by the time Amelia finally speaks. “Oh boy. Okay. Wow. I...should have seen this coming.”

“I mean,” Ginny has to point out, “I didn’t see this coming either.”

“Hah,” Amelia says. “Okay. Jesus, just--bring Mike over tonight after the game, I need to talk to him.”

“Wait, why--” And then the penny drops, and Ginny groans loudly. “Amelia, come on, you don’t actually have to--”

“Oh yes, I do,” Amelia says, determined. “Ginny, we agreed I could do this to anyone you date, and he counts, so you’re bringing him to my house and we are gonna have a _talk_.” Ginny groans louder at this, and Amelia adds, sweetly, “Unless you want me to call up Evelyn and Blip, make them do it.”

“No,” Ginny says, emphatic. “No, that is definitely not happening.”

“Great,” Amelia says, and Ginny can _hear_ the shark’s grin that Amelia has on her face right now. “I’ll see you both tonight, then.”

Ginny at least waits until the call ends before she lets out a pitiful whine. It says something that out of all the overprotective people in Ginny’s life--and there are many--Amelia is probably the worst. 

And now she and Mike are both going to have to face her. Oh joy.

*

“I don’t understand how you’re not more worried about this, though,” Ginny says impatiently as they pull up into Amelia and Henry’s driveway. 

Mike shrugs, looking entirely unbothered by the idea of getting grilled up close and personal by Ginny’s agent--and his ex-girlfriend--during what promises to be one of the most awkward dinners ever. “I mean, I kind of assumed this would be coming at some point,” he says, turning the engine off. 

“I didn’t,” Ginny grumbles, and when Mike raises an unimpressed eyebrow at this, hastily adds, “Not like _that_ , you know not like that--” Mike’s eyebrow stays up, but there’s an amused grin lurking at the corner of his mouth, and Ginny punches him in the shoulder. “Ugh, you’re the worst, don’t mess with me right now.”

“Baker, have you met me?” Mike asks as he gets out of the truck. “I _live_ for messing with your head.”

“Ughhh,” Ginny groans theatrically as she follows Mike to the front door. 

Mike lightly hip-checks her as they walk up the steps. “Relax,” he says, eyes crinkling as he grins. “If your off-key singing in the shower can’t scare me off, Amelia’s got no chance.”

“That’s so comforting to hear, Mike,” Ginny says, dryly, and Mike’s still laughing when Amelia’s husband Henry opens the door. 

“Hey guys,” Henry says with an easy grin, looking amused. “Amelia’s putting the last finishing touches on dinner, come on in.”

“Thanks, Henry,” Ginny says, smiling back at him. Honestly, she’ll probably never stop being amused at Amelia marrying Eliot’s older brother, but she and Henry really do make a great couple. Not least of which because he’s so relaxed about Amelia going into Shark Mode, as Ginny and Elliot have dubbed it. 

“Eliot has a date,” Henry explains as they walk into the kitchen, “--otherwise he would’ve made it tonight, I know he was really disappointed to miss this.”

As Mike chuckles, Ginny throws a look up at the ceiling. “Once again, I would like to state for the record that this is entirely unnecessary. I can pick my own damn boyfriends.”

Amelia glances up from the stove as they all walk in, her ponytail swishing as she turns her head to give Ginny a look. “You can pick them, sure. Putting the fear of God into them is my job.” She gives Mike a smile that really shouldn’t have so many teeth in it. “Hello, Mike.”

Mike, somehow, is looking relatively relaxed right now. “Amelia,” he says, nodding. 

Amelia looks from him to Ginny, and then says, lightly, “How about we step into my office for a second?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Ginny says. “You drag us over here so you can interrogate Mike and I don’t even get to watch? Or intervene?”

“Yeah, basically,” Amelia confirms. “Don’t worry, I’ll get to you next.” As Ginny gapes, Amelia walks over to kiss Henry on the mouth, murmuring, “Keep stirring the risotto, please?”

“You got it,” Henry confirms, and gives Mike a salute. “Good luck, buddy.”

“Appreciate it,” Mike says, and walks off with Amelia, calling over his shoulder, “If I don’t return, think of me fondly.”

Ginny slumps against the marble kitchen island. “Well, this is going to go well.”

“Ah, come on, it’ll be fine,” Henry reassures her. “Mike’s the only person as protective of you as my wife is, and Amelia knows it, she won’t be too rough on him.”

Henry’s not wrong, and Ginny knows it--hell, they all know it, despite the teasing just now. But _still_. “Amelia’s ideas of ‘too rough’ don’t exactly mesh with mine, you know.”

Henry thinks this over, and concedes, “Okay, fair.” He glances over as her, and says, “But it’s not like she’ll be able to scare him off either.” He pauses, and adds, “I mean, she’ll definitely threaten him--but scare him off? Nah.”

“I’m sorry, have you met your wife?” Ginny asks, looking at him skeptically. 

Henry gives her a crooked smile. “Have you seen the way that Mike looks at you?” he counters. As heat floods Ginny’s cheeks, he says next, “Tell Amelia I said this and I will deny it, but there’s not much you can do when the deal’s already done, and she knows it. She just wants to make sure you both understand what you’re in for.”

Ginny exhales. Staring down at her hands, she says softly, “That seems so…” Premature. Optimistic. “Early, still,” she finishes. “We haven’t been together that long.”

Before Henry can respond to that, Mike and Amelia reappear, Ginny automatically turning at the sound of Mike’s footsteps. “Nobody’s bleeding,” she says as they come back in, looking MIke over with deliberately overdone concern. “That a good sign?”

“Eh, he’ll live,” Amelia says with a casual shrug. “Ginny, can I talk to you for a second?”

And now comes the part of the evening that Ginny really wasn’t looking forward to. “Yeah,” she says, with a nonchalance she doesn’t actually feel. “Let’s do it.”

Her nerves don’t disappear once she and Amelia are alone, Amelia fixing her with a look that’s far more patient than the ones she surely gave Mike, but no less searching for all that. “So. Mike Lawson, huh?”

“Yup,” Ginny says. 

Amelia laughs a little, shaking her head. “Okay. Putting aside the fact that if he ends up dragging you down in any way, I will _wreck_ him--I actually want to talk about you right now.”

Ginny takes a breath. “I figured as much.”

“Ginny, this is terrible timing,” Amelia says, frank. “You’ve just broken up with Andre, which is bad enough, but now you’re dating someone else in the public eye--”

“Mike’s retired now--”

“He’s still Mike Lawson,” Amelia says. “He’s your ex-captain, a guaranteed Hall of Famer, he still works and travels with the team you play for, and if the media gets ahold of this, Ginny--”

Ginny holds herself still, braces herself as best as she can. Amelia’s not saying anything that Ginny doesn’t already know, she’s not saying anything Ginny hasn’t already tried to lecture herself with. 

But Amelia looks at her face and stops, pausing briefly before moving on. “Mike says you want to keep this under wraps, is that true?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Good,” Amelia says firmly. “That’s the smartest thing you can do right now. Just keep this all undercover. We’ve got some leeway here because everyone knows you two are friends, they expect to see you together at times, but that’ll only go so far. So no PDA where anyone can see, nothing in public that can even _remotely_ be construed as a date.”

“So we’re still staying on the down-low,” Ginny says, nodding. “Got it, Amelia.”

Amelia’s still watching her face, and asks, even more gently now, “Ginny...what are you looking to get out of this? What do you want?”

“What does anybody want out of a relationship?” Ginny says, trying to deflect, but it would help maybe if she could look Amelia in the face as she’s saying it. 

And of course, Amelia doesn’t let her get away with it. “Ginny,” she says, still gentle but insistent. 

Ginny looks down at her hands. It’s one thing to think it, it’s one thing to look at Mike when they’re together and to hope for--it’s another thing to look at Amelia, her agent and her friend, and say what’s been tumbling through her brain these past few weeks. “I think that...that I just want to have this,” she admits, the words finally rising up to the surface. “I don’t want to...to worry about getting the perfect photo for our respective Instagrams, or keeping track of what the gossip blogs and magazines are saying, or going out to premieres of movies I don’t even care about. I did all that stuff with Andre, and I--I made that choice, I own that, nobody forced me to do any of it.”

Ginny finally lets herself look up at Amelia, who’s watching her so patiently that it feels easier, saying the rest of it out loud. Taking the risk of putting what she actually wants into words.

“But with Mike, it’s...right now, it’s just mine, you know? I don’t have to share it with anyone, I don’t have to explain myself, or present it the right way so that it doesn't turn into another stupid scandal, I can just--be happy.”

“And you are?” Amelia asks. 

“Yeah,” Ginny says, letting out a long breath. “I am.”

“Okay,” Amelia says, and gives Ginny a soft smile. “Okay, that’s good.”

“Yeah, it is,” Ginny says, giving her an answering smile.

Amelia takes a breath, her smile wavering, before she cautions, “Ginny, I’m not trying to talk you out of anything, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t warn you--at some point, this is likely going to get out, no matter how cautious the two of you are. And once it does, it’s going to be front-page news.”

“I know, but there’s nothing we can do about that,” Ginny says. She tries a smile next, shrugging one shoulder as she adds, “Besides--when is anything I do _not_ front-page news at this point?”

Amelia snorts. “Fair point,” she mutters. “Just...please be careful.” She pauses, and then adds, “Also, you probably could’ve done worse.”

Ginny’s eyebrows go up. “Yeah?”

Amelia shrugs her shoulders, and says, “Yeah, but if you tell Mike I said that, I’ll deny it.” Despite her words, she’s giving Ginny a sly smile, inviting her in on the joke.

*

A few weeks later, Ginny is in a hotel in Phoenix, sitting down with Julio as they go over the list of batters Ginny’ll be facing today. 

“How have you been lately, anyway?” Julio asks casually mid-conversation.

Ginny glances up at this. “Fine, why?”

“You’ve just seemed like you’re in a really good mood lately, that’s all,” Julio says, still in that same overdone casual voice that has Ginny’s ears pricking. 

She keeps it cool, though. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Julio gives her a little smile. “That’s good, then.” Ginny’s not sure, but she thinks he glances over to where Mike’s sitting with some of the other coaches, and she tenses up, bracing for another question--

\--but Julio doesn’t ask, he just turns back to discussing when Ginny should break out her fastball. They’re still talking it over when Ginny’s phone buzzes in her pocket, and she pulls it up to see a text from Alyssa Calloway that simply reads: _need to talk to you NOW_.

“Everything okay?” Julio asks, noticing her frown. 

“Uh, maybe,” Ginny says slowly. “Give me a second?” She hits call on her screen, and Alyssa picks up on the first ring. 

“Hey, I got your text, what’s up?” Ginny asks. 

Alyssa takes an audible breath over the line. “Okay, so I--kind of fucked up,” she says in a rush, the words running together so quickly that it takes Ginny a second to parse what she’s just said. “No, I definitely fucked up.”

Ginny pauses, and says, “Hang on, okay?” She takes the phone away from her ear and says to Julio, “I need to take this, sorry, I’ll be right back.” At Julio’s nod, Ginny quickly gets up from the table, heading over to the hallway to get some privacy. Once no one is in earshot, Ginny says quietly, keeping her voice as soothing as she can, “Okay, slow down and tell me what’s happened.”

“It’s the interview I did, with _Out_ magazine, they just--they took an angle with it that I didn’t expect, and I gave them some quotes that make it look even worse and I--”

“Alyssa,” Ginny says, cutting in. “You need to actually explain what happened. Did you bash your teammates or your coach?”

“No,” Alyssa says slowly. 

“Okay then, did you...I don’t know, did you talk shit about the commissioner on the record or something?”

“No,” Alyssa says, her voice even smaller. 

“Then what--” Ginny stops, because she really should have put it together before now. “You mean, you talked about me.”

“Yeah,” Alyssa admits. “Ginny, I’m _so_ sorry, I didn’t even mean for it to come across like it did, I was just complaining about how the media’s always comparing us, but it came out wrong and the interviewer wanted to--”

Ginny breathes in and out through her nose as Alyssa talks, and finally, her temper making her voice clipped, she asks, “Did you at least get an advance copy of the interview?”

Alyssa stops. “Yeah,” she says, after a moment. “Ray’s sending a copy over to your agent, we wanted to give you a heads-up.”

“Okay,” Ginny says. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Amelia walking into the dining room, looking furious. “So I’m going to read the interview, and figure out what to do next.”

“All right,” Alyssa says, sounding so young and so sorry. Ginny wishes that it mattered more in this moment, that she could stop feeling like she got a bucket of cold water dumped onto her head. “Ginny, I...I really am sorry.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ginny says, and Amelia’s standing in front of her now, still looking pissed off, and Ginny says next, “I’ll talk to you later.”

As she hangs up, Amelia says, tight-lipped, “We have a problem.”

“Yeah,” Ginny says, holding up her phone. “So I’ve just heard.”

*

Ginny reads the entire PDF of the Out magazine profile on Amelia’s tablet, while Amelia and Eliot discuss it in quiet whispers over Ginny’s head. 

As a profile of Alyssa, it’s good. It goes into details about Alyssa’s childhood on Staten Island, discussing things Ginny never knew--Alyssa being bullied in high school by homophobic assholes, how she used baseball as a way to bond with her family, how she and Erin met and started dating. 

If the story was just about Alyssa, it would be great.

Except that the writer, some guy named Brayden Colberg, makes a _point_ of comparing Alyssa to Ginny, Alyssa’s unfettered honesty with Ginny’s polished public image, which has been “scrubbed free of any deliberate controversy, or anything that resembles an actual opinion”. He goes on to say that Ginny’s the unthreatening superstar America wants, that even if she is a black woman, she’s still pretty and feminine and straight enough for people to feel good about liking her, for advertising companies to make her their corporate shill. That Ginny’s had it easier than Alyssa, and Alyssa’s really the progressive, diverse player that the world needs right now.

There’s more, but Ginny skims that part. 

What Ginny doesn’t skim are the quotes from Alyssa, where yes, she praises Ginny, thanks Ginny for her help, but--presumably in response to a leading question--Alyssa says, “I mean, Ginny and I aren’t the same person, you know? I can’t just put a smile on my face the way she can, I can’t keep swallowing things and not speaking my mind. That’s just not how I do things.”

Compared, Ginny supposes, to the way _she’s_ always done things. 

“Ginny?” Amelia asks gently, cutting into her thoughts. 

Ginny finally looks up and hands her the tablet. “You know, I’ve been called a lot of things, but a corporate shill is...new.” She means for it to come out wry, but from the sympathetic looks Amelia and Eliot are giving her, Ginny isn’t succeeding. 

“The guy’s an asshole,” Amelia says, emphatic. “He’s a misogynist--”

“--and a racist,” Eliot interjects.

Amelia nods in agreement, quickly amending, “Yeah, he’s a misogynist and a racist who probably worships at the altar of Milo Yiannopoulos or some garbage like that. He’s a cheap hack with editors that are looking for hateclicks, so they’re ramping up the controversy and dragging your name into it.” Her lips go thinner as she adds, “Of course, it certainly doesn’t help when Calloway plays right into their hands. Real charmer, that girl.”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t like her,” Ginny tosses off, trying to make a joke over the dull knot in her stomach. 

Amelia doesn’t back down. “You’re right, I don’t like her.” She looks down at the tablet, pursing her lips as she adds, “Right now, she’s at the top of my shit list.”

“When this article comes out, she’s going to be on everyone’s shit list,” Eliot says. “This interview is not gonna go down well.”

“Well, that’s not our problem,” Amelia says, briskly. “That girl’s not my client, or my friend, so she can just lie there in the bed she made for herself.”

“She didn’t actually write the article, Amelia,” Ginny has to point out. 

“She still gave out those quotes when she should have known better,” Amelia immediately retorts. “Look, if you’d ever said anything that ridiculous when you were just starting out, the media would’ve crucified you for it. Why on earth should I go easier on Alyssa when she helped put a target on your back?”

There’s nothing Ginny can say to that, not when Alyssa and Eliot are watching her, not with this knot still in the pit of her stomach. “Okay,” she says with a sigh. “Let’s just--get through this mess, okay?”

“You’re going to be fine,” Amelia promises her, jaw set like she will literally punch through a wall to make that true. 

“Yeah,” Ginny says. “I know.”

*

“Goddamn,” Mike says, reading the article over on his laptop that night in bed. “This really is a shitshow.”

“Yeah, no fucking kidding,” Ginny mutters, rubbing at her face with a sigh. 

Mike glances up at her, and then turns back to the story, reading glasses perched on his nose. Despite her mood, Ginny grins a little at the sight--if she’s really honest with herself, the glasses are kind of working for her. 

“Hey,” she says after a moment. “You should keep those on tonight.”

Mike looks up at this, a crooked grin starting to spread across his face. “Yeah?” At Ginny’s nod, he laughs and gives her a wink before returning his attention back to the screen. Once he’s obviously reached the end, he lets out a low whistle and shakes his head. “I won’t lie, I’m kind of tempted to go and find this asshole of a writer, except I’m pretty sure whatever I could do won’t be as bad as what Amelia’s got planned for him.”

“I didn’t even ask her,” Ginny admits, turning her attention back to braiding up her hair for sleep. “I want to keep at least _some_ plausible deniability.”

“Smart,” Mike says, pointing a finger at her in agreement. He watches her in silence for a minute, before saying in a matter-of-fact voice, “So, this is garbage.”

Ginny doesn’t look over at him, just continues to braid her hair, fingers moving on autopilot. “Yeah, it is.”

“You know it’s okay for you to be pissed about this, right?” Mike asks her. “It’s okay for you to be pissed off at this writer, and at Alyssa.”

Ginny swallows and shakes her head. “Alyssa keeps sending me texts. Not to ask for my help or anything, just to--keep saying how sorry she is.”

“I’m sure she is sorry,” Mike agrees. “You still get to be pissed off.”

“I am pissed,” Ginny says after a moment. “I’m pissed that writer decided to turn this entire article into a referendum on me, I’m pissed Alyssa said that stuff on the record, I’m pissed that...that I’m looking at that article, knowing how stupid it is, and I’m still wondering if it’s right about me.”

It’s almost gratifying, the horrified look that flashes across Mike’s face at this. “What the fuck? Ginny, that article is bullshit and you know it.”

Ginny shrugs one shoulder. “It’s right, though. I _do_ avoid saying controversial things. My entire career, I’ve kept my head down as much as possible and I just go out and pitch. Alyssa’s the one putting herself out there, speaking her mind--”

“Ginny, stop, stop,” Mike says, climbing out of bed to walk to her side, taking one of her hands in his. “There is _nothing_ wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be allowed to do your job in peace, especially when everyone else on the planet is flinging garbage at your head day in and day out for daring to even exist.”

Ginny’s throat is starting to hurt, and she swallows as Mike continues. “It’s total bullshit that this writer decided to pit you against Alyssa in some fucked-up competition that neither one of you are actually in, and it’s even more fucked up that he ignored literally everything you’ve been through to do it. There’s only one bad guy in this and it’s him, trust me.”

“Okay,” Ginny says quietly, closing her eyes as Mike leans in to press a kiss to her forehead. She lets herself lean in against him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist as she says, “Okay, I hear you.”

*

It’s not a shitshow when the profile of Alyssa goes out.

It is, somehow, even worse than that. 

The media has a field day, despite Alyssa’s brief statement on her Instagram explaining that her quotes were taken out of context, that she doesn’t stand behind the writer’s conclusions and that she had nothing but respect for Ginny. Twitter is in flames, according to Eliot--everyone debating the article, calling Alyssa everything from ungrateful to a “clueless White Feminist”, the talking heads on ESPN and Fox Sports 1 are ripping into the story, and as for Brayden Colberg, he’s apparently gone deep underground to avoid the entire mess. 

And then a day or two after the article is published, Blip gives his opinion to an ESPN reporter in Boston on the whole mess. On the record, and on camera. 

Ginny doesn’t even know why she’s surprised--Evelyn had told her during their phone call that Blip was seething over the entire disaster, his protective big-brother instincts rising up once again, even though he was all the way across the country, even though he’d seen Ginny go through far worse. 

“Ginny, it’s _because_ he’s seen you go through worse that he’s so pissed off now,” Evelyn pointed out, and it had been hard to argue with that. 

Ginny watches the entire interview on her phone, between her fingers, wincing when the reporter--Scott McKnight, Ginny’s always liked him--asks Blip if he’s aware of the magazine article. Despite the dread pooling in Ginny’s stomach, she could almost laugh at the deeply unimpressed look Blip shoots McKnight in response, the way he raises his eyebrows and looks down his nose. 

On the screen, Blip shakes his head a little as he says. “Yeah, I saw it.” He chuckles a little, but without any real humor. “I mean, what can you say really?”

“Given your long friendship with Ginny Baker, your years together in the minors, in San Diego--I’m sure you must have some thoughts on this. I mean, you’ve really had a front-row seat to everything that’s been discussed in the media lately.”

If the subject wasn’t her, Ginny could almost admire the slickness of it--how that question is carefully calibrated to appeal to Blip, to slip past Blip’s media training and usual reticence. 

And it works, of course it works. Blip’s listening to this, jaw set, nodding a little as McKnight talks. “Yeah, you know, it’s just--” He cuts himself off and sighs, a real sigh of discontent, and goes in. “It’s just frustrating to see people talking when it’s clear they don’t know what they’re talking about. I mean, Ginny’s family to me. That’s my sister you’re talking about there, that’s a girl I’ve seen go through…” He trails off, and McKnight is smart enough to keep quiet, waiting Blip out. 

It works, as Blip continues. “I was there when she was getting death threats for having the nerve to walk out at Petco with a uniform on and a mitt on her hand, I was there when an opposing player was calling her slurs during the NLDS series in 2018, man, I was there for almost all of it. All the crap people were throwing at her for just--being who she is. All that crap Ginny’s been through, and you’re telling me that reporter doesn’t know that? That _Calloway_ doesn’t know it?”

McKnight finally comes in at this. “So, you think it’s disrespectful?”

Blip shrugs. “It’s not for me to say, but...yeah, I’d say so, a little. I just know that Ginny’s bent over backwards to help this girl, and I’m of the opinion that if you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to someone, you shouldn’t be talking in the first place.”

The interview cuts out there, the footage immediately going to a bunch of ESPN talking heads discussing Blip’s words, Alyssa’s quotes, Alyssa’s everything, dissecting the entire controversy with visible relish, and Ginny is just--Ginny is _done_. 

“Fuck,” she mutters to herself, stabbing at her phone with one finger until the stream ends, and then tossing it down on the tabletop with a sigh. 

“What the hell was Blip thinking?” she asks Eliot later that day, and Eliot gives her a surprised look in response. 

“Wait, are you--are you really surprised he said something?” At whatever look Ginny has on her face, Eliot’s eyebrows fly up. “Oh, boy.” He actually puts his tablet to the side as he says, “Ginny. You know Oscar had to come down and basically put a gag order on all of your teammates to keep them from talking to the media? And even that’s only worked so far, because most of them are still talking to reporters, they’re just keeping it off the record.”

Ginny lets out a groan. “I’ve been trying not to think about it,” she admits. 

“”People are protective of you,” Eliot says with a shrug. “They see someone talking shit, and they want to go on the warpath.”

“Like Amelia?” Ginny asks. “Please tell me whatever revenge she’s planning isn’t too drastic, at least.”

Eliot winces. “Yeah, it involves my hacker buddies, so I can’t do that.” Ginny stares at him, and Eliot just shrugs and says, “I gave her their numbers. Like I said, we’re protective.”

*

“Everyone in my life has lost their minds,” Ginny tells Mike at dinner the next evening. They’re back home in San Diego for a run of games, and the team’s doing well--they’re three and a half games ahead in the wild-card race, on a winning streak--if it wasn’t for this stupid controversy, things would be great right now.

“Yeah, you’re assuming they weren’t all totally bonkers to start with,” Mike points out. “Never make that assumption with baseball players.”

“Did you know Julio’s been talking to the local beat reporters off the record?” Ginny asks. “And when I confronted him, he just shrugged and said that they needed to know! Know _what_ , there’s not a single part of this mess that hasn’t been discussed to death already.”

Mike grimaces a little at this, but doesn’t say anything, choosing instead to stuff his face with the spaghetti on his plate. Ginny stops mid-rant and asks, “What.”

Mike visibly hesitates before he speaks, but he says, “Well...they’re all still waiting to hear what _you_ have to say.”

Ginny feels her face go still at this. “I already have,” she tells him, but it sounds weak to her own ears.

Mike shakes his head, sitting back in his seat. “Ginny. Telling Eliot to post some tweet for you isn’t talking about it.”

Ginny sets her jaw. “So, what--I should go out there and call a press conference? Make myself a target for yet another feeding frenzy from the media, another day where my name is trending on Twitter and it’s got nothing to do with the pitches I throw?”

A furrow appears between Mike’s eyebrows. “Ginny, the world’s not going to fall apart if you say what you think in front of a microphone.”

Ginny stares at him in disbelief. “Do me a favor,” she says after a moment. “Search my name on Twitter, read the shit people say about me, and then tell me that to my face again.”

“Ginny, come on,” Mike starts, but thinks better of continuing. After a moment where Ginny stabs angrily at her pasta with her fork, Mike speaks again, this time in a more measured tone. “Okay, you know what, maybe I am being a little too dismissive here.”

“Gee, you think?” Ginny replies, sarcasm curdling her voice.

“Look, it’s--” Mike takes a deep breath. “You’ve got an army of people out there that are defending you, because they love you and think it’s what you need. I’m just…” He trails off, shaking his head, and something about his expression, the purse of his lips, grabs Ginny’s attention.

“What?” she asks again, but this time in a gentler voice.

Mike looks at her, and he asks abruptly, “Do you have any idea how crazy I am about you?”

Ginny goes very still at his words, because they don’t actually talk about this. It’s been an unspoken fact since that first night in Milwaukee, because they both know what this is, what they’re feeling and what they mean to each other. Ginny knows how Mike feels about her, it’s obvious from the way he looks at her, how he embraces all the ridiculous precautions they have to take in order to keep from getting caught, how he took Amelia’s lectures and threats in stride. Ginny sees the proof of it every day, and she’s believed all this time that she didn’t need to hear him say it out loud.

From the way her heart is suddenly pounding in her chest, Ginny might have been wrong about that. “Mike,” she breathes out, staring at him.

Mike licks his lips--from nerves, Ginny realizes, he’s actually _nervous_ right now. “I look at you,” he says, his face open and vulnerable, “--and all I can think is, ‘God, I want to give that woman everything she wants.’ If you asked me right now to join Amelia’s vendetta against that stupid Colberg prick, I’d do it. If you asked me to go call a reporter right now and defend Alyssa publicly, I’d do that too. Because what you want _matters_ to me, Ginny. I just...can’t figure out why it doesn’t matter to you.”

Ginny has to swallow before she can speak. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Yeah,” Mike says with a little huff of laughter, but without any real humor in it. “You’re telling me. Ginny...why doesn’t it matter to you?”

Because what she wants isn’t important. Not compared with what she has to do, the goals she needs to meet, the standards she needs to exceed. For the last four years, Ginny’s been trying to live up to the girl that exists in the posters, to the legendary trailblazer she’s constantly assured she is. Ginny’s coped as best as she can, by separating what she thinks of as her real self away from the glossy image in the magazines, but now in this moment, Ginny has to admit how… _small_ that protective shell has become.

“Because it’s been four years,” Ginny admits, and because it’s Mike, she doesn’t bother to try to keep her voice from shaking as she speaks. “And I still feel like if I make one wrong mistake, all of this is going to disappear.”

“Ginny,” Mike says, looking right at her with so much sympathy that it makes her throat ache, being the focus of it. “That’s a shitty fucking way to live.”

Ginny somehow laughs, even as she’s blinking back sudden tears. “You know what?” she says. “It really is.”

*

The phone rings three times before Alyssa answers, and when she does, she sounds utterly astonished. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Ginny says, taking in a deep breath. “So, I probably should’ve called before now.”

“Oh my God, no way, you don’t--” Alyssa cuts herself off, and then says carefully. “You don’t owe me that. Or--anything, actually, not after everything.”

Ginny lets out a sigh. “No, I should have,” she insists, firm. “If only so we could clear the air.”

On the other line, she can hear Alyssa take a shaky breath. “Okay. Um--what did you want to say?”

“That the article was shit,” Ginny says, so bluntly that Alyssa lets out a little giggling laugh of surprise. “And that you’re not the reason _why_ it was shit, but I still...I guess I wanted to ask you what you meant to say in that interview, rather than what you did say.”

“Yeah, yeah of course,” Alyssa says, but pauses before continuing. “What I wanted--what I _should_ have told that writer was that I can’t be you. I can’t--I won’t ever be able to pull off what you did, what you’ve done over these last four years. I could kill myself trying and I still wouldn’t pull it off, you know? And I--I’m not trying to, I’m just trying to do what I can, as myself. It just gets...really exhausting sometimes, always being compared to you.”

“Yeah,” Ginny says, the words coming out in a sigh. “Yeah, I figured.”

“But instead,” Alyssa says, “I said it in the worst way possible, I made myself look like a fool and what’s worse is that I caused more trouble for you, and I’m just so damn sorry about that, Ginny. I really--I keep apologizing, I know, and you have to be sick of it--”

“It’s okay,” Ginny says, and somehow...it really is. Hearing Alyssa’s voice on the line, stumbling over her words, it eases something in her head, makes it possible for Ginny to let go of the last lingering traces of her own resentment. “I mean, if you want to keep groveling that’s cool, but it’s not actually necessary.”

“Yeah?” Alyssa asks, hopeful and wary in equal measure.

“Yeah,” Ginny assures her. “We’re good, Calloway.” She pauses, and then adds, thinking of Amelia and Eliot, “Although do me a favor, don’t open any attachments sent to you in an email, okay?” 

“Okay,” Alyssa says, half-laughing, her relief obvious. “Sure, whatever you say.”

“It gets exhausting for me too,” Ginny says, before she can lose her nerve. “The comparisons and stuff. Having to live up to the idea people have of me, knowing they’re always watching. And it--” she swallows, but she has to say this, there’s no point to making this phone call if she doesn’t get out everything she needs to say. “That’s what so good about having you around now. You’ll get it.”

Because Alyssa will, if she doesn’t already--all the things Ginny doesn’t say to Amelia, or Blip or Will or even Mike, all the things she can’t explain because you would literally have to _be_ her to understand it--Alyssa will know, and she’ll get it. Not everything, but--enough. 

On the other end of the line, there’s a long pause before Alyssa finally speaks. “That was the coolest thing about meeting you for the first time,” she admits in a whisper. “There I was at that restaurant, my knees shaking, and then you came in and you looked so _happy_ to see me...and I thought, ‘Man, if Ginny Baker is smiling at me like that, I must be doing something right’.”

Ginny knows exactly what she’s referring to--that moment in the restaurant in LA, walking into the private room with Amelia at her back, seeing this stocky white girl with her spiky blond hair cropped short, getting to her feet with a delighted grin--and how easy it had been for Ginny to smile back at her. 

“You are,” Ginny answers now. “Trust me.” She smiles a little now, rolling her eyes at herself as she says, “I know a little bit what I’m talking about.”

Alyssa’s laughing now for real, even as she says, “Yeah, no shit, Baker,” and just like that, it’s all easy again.

Ginny comes into the bedroom fifteen minutes later, carrying her phone in her hand. Mike’s seemingly fast asleep on what’s already become his side of the bed, and Ginny does her best to get ready for sleep without waking him. 

But when she slips in underneath the sheets, Mike immediately rolls over and wraps his arm around her, pulling her in close, his body a reassuringly solid weight against hers. “Phone call go well?” he murmurs, words slurring together from sleep.

“Yeah,” Ginny says softly, curling into the warmth of his body. “It did.”

“Mm,” Mike rumbles, already halfway to falling asleep again. “That’s good.” He falls asleep for real not a few minutes later, breathing in warm puffs against the back of Ginny’s neck, while Ginny traces circles on the back of Mike’s hand, and waits to fall asleep herself.

*

A few days later, Saanvi Madan, the beat reporter from the Union-Tribune, is waiting in the clubhouse for Ginny after their afternoon win against the Giants. Once Ginny’s showered and changed back into her street clothes, she walks up to one of the empty executive suites, where Saanvi and Amelia are waiting.

Saanvi gives her a beaming grin as Ginny approaches, saying, “Hey Ginny. Great win today.”

“Thanks,” Ginny says, a smile automatically coming to her lips. “Our bullpen killed it today.”

They make small talk as Ginny gets settled in, and then finally Saanvi is pulling out her tape recorder and setting it on the table. “So,” Saanvi says, “It’s been a pretty interesting week for you off the field, Ginny.”

“Yeah, it has been,” Ginny agrees with a nod. “Normally I’d just, you know, let the nonsense die down, but I thought it was time to say something.”

“I’m going to start with asking you what you thought of Colberg’s article,” Saanvi says, taking notes on her pad. “We’ve heard from your teammates, your former teammates, even Al Luongo was discussing it at his broadcasting gig on ESPN--but up until now, we’ve heard very little from you directly. What’s your take on it?”

“Honestly,” Ginny says, “I thought it was crap.” Amelia’s sitting in a corner of the room observing, and Ginny can see her taking a deep breath at that--but she stays silent, because they’ve talked this over, and Ginny was clear with Amelia what she’s going to say--what she’ll be saying from now on.

_“Are you sure you want to do this?” Amelia had asked this morning. “I’m not trying to talk you out of it, I promise--but are you sure?”_

_“Yes,” Ginny had said firmly. “And I still want to do the joint interview with Alyssa this year. Find someone we can trust and set it up.”_

_“Okay,” Amelia said, and to her credit, she didn’t sound at all doubtful. “Then I’ll make it happen.”_

And now Amelia’s here, watching Ginny like she has every confidence Ginny can pull this off, the balancing act she’s now determined to do, where she keeps her guard up but still says what she wants to say, when she needs to say it. 

“Let’s be honest, it’s hardly the first time someone’s criticized me,” Ginny makes sure to say next. “But what really bothered me about the article is that if you look at it, it’s not about me or Alyssa, it’s really just about this writer looking to score some points and get some controversy going, and using us to do it.” Ginny shrugs again, and finishes, “Which is a shame, because I think there were a lot of important things that article could have talked about, but instead it’s just the same old sexist crap of trying to set us up in competition with each other. Which is garbage, and not fair to either one of us.”

Saanvi is nodding at this, and she asks next, “If you’d had the choice, what would you have liked to have seen?”

“Well, I would’ve liked to see more focus on Alyssa, honestly,” Ginny says. “The cool thing is that she brings such a different perspective to things and I think that’s important for the sport. Like--I love baseball, I love that it’s so traditional and sentimental, but we’ve still got to have room for people who are different, you know? We can’t just be jamming people into this one narrow mold and expecting them to twist themselves up into knots trying to fit in. From my own experience, that only works so far.”

“Let’s talk about that experience for a moment,” Saanvi says next. “One of the things I think really got people’s backs up when it came to that article was the idea that you haven’t experienced any kind of opposition or prejudice--or perhaps that you haven’t experienced enough of it, even. Obviously this is ridiculous, but what’s your response to that?”

“Well, it’s like I said--it’s not a competition between Alyssa and I to see who has, I don’t know, suffered more or whatever,” Ginny says. “For one thing, it’s not a competition either one of us is interested in winning--who’d want to win this?”

Saanvi chuckles at this, and even Amelia smiles. Ginny takes a breath, and chooses her next words carefully. “As to the rest of it, I’m not trying to complain, I’m really not. But if you’ve seen me pitch in St. Louis, if you’ve seen the way the crowd reacts--I mean, we know what’s going on there. We _all_ know what’s going on there. And if you _don’t_ know, then it’s probably something you don’t want to know about in the first place.”

Saanvi nods in understanding. “One thing that’s been a constant in all this is how--protective your teammates are of you. Even the guys that aren’t with the Padres anymore, like Blip Sanders. The second constant is the idea that Alyssa Calloway should have...perhaps should have known better. That her quotes about you were a show of disrespect. What do you feel about that, and what’s your relationship with her like right now?”

“Alyssa and I are good,” Ginny says firmly. “We’ve talked it out, and we both know where the other person’s coming from, so there’s no conflict there at all. As for the rest of it...” Ginny pauses, almost unconsciously shifting her weight, gathering the words she needs to say.

“The thing is,” Ginny says, and swallows before saying the rest of it aloud. “The thing is that I _want_ things to be easier for Alyssa than they ever were for me. Just like I want the next woman that comes after us to have it easier than we both did. If we’re not making any progress, if we’re not moving forward, then what’s the point? What’s the point of--” Ginny stops herself, but after a moment, she pushes on, saying, “A lot of times, the only thing that kept me going was the idea that someday it would get easier. If not for me, than whoever came after me.”

“Alyssa’s the one that comes next,” Saanvi says.

Ginny smiles at the old reference. “Yeah. She’s next. And I want her to have an easier time of it than I did. Not just because she deserves that, but just because that’s how it _should_ be.”

Over Saanvi’s shoulder, Ginny sees Amelia smile at her, and lets out the breath she didn’t realize she’s been holding throughout this interview. 

There’s more to it, of course, Saanvi transitioning to a conversation that’s about actual baseball--the team’s position in the standings, how Julio’s been doing since he was called up, Ginny’s role as a leader in the clubhouse, one of the veterans--Ginny laughs at the idea of being called a veteran, already picturing Mike’s reaction when he sees that in print.

Once the interview has finally come to a close, Saanvi shaking Ginny’s hand and then shaking Amelia’s as she leaves, Ginny lets her shoulders drop, lets her body relax as she turns to Amelia once they’re alone and asking, “How was that?”

Amelia’s watching her with a fond smile on her face. “You know,” she starts, and then shakes her head a little. “I keep forgetting how good you are at all this. You’d think I wouldn’t, six years in, but I still do sometimes.”

Ginny smiles, but tries to cover it up with a shrug. “That’s me, full of surprises.”

“Yeah,” Amelia agrees seriously. “You really are.”

Later that night when they’re sitting together on his couch, Mike asks her casually, “How’d your interview with Saanvi go, anyway?”

“Good,” Ginny says, settling in against his side, reaching out for the bowl of popcorn sitting in Mike’s lap. “It actually went really well.”

“Of course it did,” Mike says, as though there was never any doubt. “Saanvi’s great, and you know what you’re doing.”

“Yeah,” Ginny agrees. “I do.”

Once Saanvi’s article goes up, Ginny’s quotes from the interview are spread far and wide, and yes, they cause even more commentary and controversy...especially once the Cardinals fanbase gets involved. It’s all a mess of sound and noise, and a _lot_ of people yelling on social media.

Ginny’s learning to be okay with that.

Epilogue:

A month after--as Eliot has taken to calling it--the Calloway Incident, Ginny and the Padres are in New York to play the Mets, and Mike’s acting weird. Not so obvious that you would notice if you weren’t paying attention, but he’s a little quieter, a little more distracted than normal on the plane trip into LaGuardia.

Ginny doesn’t know what’s going on until her phone buzzes with an incoming group text from Evelyn, one she’s sent to Mike as well as to Ginny, eagerly detailing how she’s coming in from Boston to see them, that she’ll come to the game against the Mets and then they’ll all go out to dinner and catch up in person. 

Ginny quickly texts back her agreement--Facetime and emails and texts are great, but it’s been too long since she’s seen Evelyn in person. “You’re in, right?” she asks Mike, but she’s already assuming he’ll say yes--of course he’ll say yes.

Except when she looks up, there’s a line between Mike’s eyebrow, and he’s not smiling. “Yeah, just…” Whatever he’s about to say, he stops himself, and says, “We’ll talk about it at the hotel.”

“Okay,” Ginny says slowly. She wants to press for more, but they’re literally surrounded by their entire team, so whatever’s bothering Mike has to unfortunately wait. 

They got into New York late, and so it’s not until after they come back from the team dinner that Ginny can slip into Mike’s hotel room and figure out what’s going on. 

“Okay, what’s wrong?” Ginny asks as the door shuts behind her. “I thought you’d be happy to see Evelyn, even if Blip can’t make it out.”

“That’s not it,” Mike immediately says, and then winces. “It’s...look, it’s nothing. We’ll see Evelyn, it’ll be great.”

“Uh huh,” Ginny says slowly. “I have an idea. What if we just skipped the denials and went straight to the part where you tell me what’s wrong?”

Mike takes a deep breath, and then exhales slowly. “Okay. So we’re going to see Evelyn, right?” Ginny nods slowly, and he asks, “What are we going to tell Evelyn when we see her?”

“About--” Ginny starts, baffled, and then as Mike gives her a look, it clicks. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Mike says, sighing. “I’m not...I’m just not crazy about lying to her. That’s all.”

Ginny looks at him, and thinks about all the sneaking around they’ve done these last two months. About crawling out of Mike’s hotel room early in the morning on road trips, about calculating how often she can sit next to him on the bus without causing any suspicion. About what it’s like to be this happy all the time, and not actually sharing with anyone why.

It hasn’t been awful, far from it. The sneaking around has almost been fun at times--having a wonderful secret that’s just their own. But at the same time, looking at Mike now, Ginny can’t imagine meeting Evelyn, one of her oldest friends in the world, and not saying a word to her. Especially not when Mike’s right there, keeping that same secret only because she asked him to.

“So we’ll tell her,” Ginny says, smiling as she watches the realization dawn on Mike’s face, that light slowly appearing in his eyes as she speaks. “And once Evelyn stops shrieking, we’ll go ahead and tell Blip too.”

“Yeah,” is all Mike says as he walks towards her, but the way his hands are sliding onto her hips, the gravelly tone to his voice as he looks at her, that all gives it away--gives _him_ away. “I can handle that.”

“Yeah?” Ginny prods, even as she’s leaning forward, tilting her chin up as she smiles. “Because I don’t know if you realize this, but Evelyn is going to be grilling us all night long.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ve got this,” Mike promises, and whatever else Ginny was going to say, it’s all wiped from her brain the second that Mike leans in to kiss her at last, his mouth so warm and sure and so _familiar_ against hers, and Ginny’s eyes flutter shut as she wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him back.

*

At the hotel, Evelyn’s shriek upon being told their secret is so loud that Ginny is afraid for one minute that her eardrum’s burst.

“Wow,” Mike mutters, rubbing at his own ear. “I think dogs all over the city heard that one.” 

But, as Evelyn immediately pulls out her phone to call Blip, who’s playing in Toronto with the Red Sox, and in the same breath scolding them for not saying a word to anyone this whole time, how _could_ they, she can’t believe she didn’t get to hear it from Amelia at least--Mike’s hand is stealing into Ginny’s, lacing his fingers through hers, and Ginny smiles back at him, happiness rising inside of her like a tide coming to the shore, and squeezes his hand back.


End file.
